I Feel Like Dying

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“Nah that’s that white boy shit.” I remember when my older brother said this. I was around 11 or 12 and it was a response to a question my mom had just asked him. After seeing a TV report on a new drug that’s gaining popularity with the youngsters called ecstasy, she had asked him if he had seen anybody around him doing it or if he and his friends had used it themselves. I grew up in the type of family where everything was out in the open and a question like this could be asked and an honest answer would be both expected and given. That was his answer. That was 9 years ago, almost a decade. Nowadays if you ask any black or latin kid in America that same question it would be a very different answer, at least if they were telling the truth. The prevalence of ecstasy and other drugs, mainly coke, syrup, and pills, in hip hop culture and music has risen dramatically. It’s now acceptable to be a “pill popping animal” and to “powder your nose but never be the type to make up”. There has been a major change in the way we party nowadays in hip hop and after certain recent events I am starting to wonder if we might need to bring it back down a little bit.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way.  Rappers have long proclaimed their love for weed and although it may lazy us up a little bit, I know personally weed will never kill you so I don’t feel it’s warranted discussion in this topic. Drugs and hip hop have always been intertwined together. What is different now though is the context in which the rappers are talking about the drugs. Almost every mainstream successful rapper in the past decade has told street tales (of which are mostly false) about how they used to sell drugs to get by. This is nothing new. What is new is that now they are saying they themselves use these drugs which before were either considered “weirdo” or “crack-headish”. When I was growing up coke was seen as something junkies do and ecstasy was for the glow stick kids. This has changed among today’s youth. These drugs have now moved out of the suburbs and into the hood. We’ve seen this before. Remember coke first started out in the suburbs too. Then it came to the hood in the form of crack. This wreaked havoc on the black community. Do you think the effects of these new drugs moving into the poor black communities will have the same effect?

I think yes and no. First off, ecstasy is not crack. Ecstasy is seen largely as a social drug to be enjoyed either with a sexual partner or with your friends in a party setting and I can tell you it is effective in both. It’s not nearly as addictive or harmful to the human body. However if it is abused like any other drug, you will pay for it. Long term brain damage, diminished ambition, emotional suffering, and yes the risk of overdose. All of these have been tied to long term ecstasy use. An ecstasy overdose is a special kind of overdose too. It’s not one where you just fall asleep and never wake up. First your body temperature raises to about 130 degrees and then your veins pop from the immense heat and pressure. Not a good feeling I’m sure. Syrup, well we saw with both DJ Screw and more recently with Pimp C what the worst case scenario with that is. Pills, you can go on them too. So no I don’t think it will be such a rapid and quick destruction as with crack but it will have a negative effect. Casual. That’s the key word here. If these drugs are seen as casual drugs instead of hardcore that will be when everything changes. When it becomes cool to do it is when we will see the real dark side of these drugs. If young kids see their older brothers doing it and now it’s present when they get of age it won’t be such an extreme thing. It will just be what it is.

There is always the question of is it still just entertainment? Like with their drug dealing past are most rappers just saying they use these drugs to follow the trends? I think probably half and half. I’m sure some do and some don’t. For the ones that really do I don’t fault you for rapping about it. Reality is what we value in hip hop so if that’s your reality, well okay I guess. What I do know for sure though is that these kids, just like with the drug dealing shit, are believing it fully and are modeling themselves after it. It’s well known rappers set trends. These are our heroes. Kids don’t wanna be like Mike anymore. They wanna be like Weezy. They wanna be like T.I. They wanna ride around in phantoms with million dollar chains on and pop pills with Brazilian models. Basketball practice? Are you crazy? So since our heroes have changed I think our youth are more and more susceptible to being influenced by this and will start acting out their thoughts. Do I blame the rappers for this? Well in part yes. Like it or not, if you’re a star, your a role model. Kids will look up to you. So if they always hear you talk about doing these drugs I do think it will influence them.

Now, are rappers fully to blame? Hell no. Parents, and yes the kids themselves have to take up the bulk of it. If you hear a song rapping about something and that is the deciding factor in you doing that action then you either had no kind of guidance or you are a weak minded moron. Like the old saying goes “if they told you to jump off a bridge, are you going to do that too?” So I’m not trying to dump on rapper’s. I’m just pointing out that these drugs are becoming more and more prevalent in our music which influences millions of kids and I think we need to take notice. In a recent interview with Blender,  Lil’ Wayne admitted that he is now physically addicted to syrup. Yes physically. Meaning that if he doesn’t use it he will go into withdrawals. That to me is very scary. What if the news broke tomorrow that Wayne was found dead from an overdose? How would that affect the game and how would it affect you? I know personally I love Lil’ Wayne’s music and am not ready to see him go. Syrup just took Pimp C from us.

Now I’m not a preacher and I’m not a perfect man. I do my thing, I’ve smoked weed daily since I was 13 and yeah, I’ve taken ecstasy. Is it a fun drug? Hell yeah. My goal here wasn’t to talk down on people who use drugs. It was just to examine a trend, which although I may partake in from time to time myself, I am man enough to know that it is not a positive thing and has to stay in it’s place. We have to be aware that too much of a good thing is a bad thing before it gets to that point.