Juice reflected on his usage of drugs at such a young age and realized it is not okay to be using drugs like that on someone who can be easily influenced. A child’s brain is still developing and drugs like he took could seriously alter the brain in a negative fashion. He is also acknowledging that a dependency and addiction to drugs was created at such a young age. Other artists have talked about their drug usage and how drugs have shaped hip-hop music. In hip hop and rap music, controversial topics are constantly talked about, including gun violence, drugs, and gang violence.
On drugs and fentanyl
Both regimes are ideologically opposed to recreational or problem drug use and, as far as we know, there is no state-funded rehabilitation provided in either country; the approach is to criminalise people rather than offer health-based interventions. Prior to the war, Ukraine had demonstrated an increasingly progressive policy towards those who had problems with drugs, establishing treatment centers https://ecosoberhouse.com/oxford-house/ and encouraging access to treatment. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, this strategy has been severely set back, with many people who need access to substitute treatments such as methadone unable to secure consistent supply of these drugs. The wars in Syria and Ukraine bear testament to the way drugs provide solutions to people who are experiencing the worst of times – and to governments that are ready to exploit evolving situations. Much of Europe’s heroin is produced in Afghanistan by small farming operations growing opium, which is then transformed into the drug. Most Afghan farmers are simply surviving growing the crop, and don’t reap significant wealth from their harvest.
A Closer Look at How Drug Overdoses Are Plaguing Hip-Hop
This verse talks about Juice’s mental health throughout the years and how drugs “saved him,” but again, controlled his life. Following Demi Lovato’s public overdose in July of 2018, the singer released a documentary Drug rehabilitation detailing exactly how her drug and alcohol use began and developed into an addiction that almost took her life. The music video recreates some of the moments leading up to and following her overdose and shares the dangers of substance abuse with the audience.
- Unfortunately, drug use also led to the death of some of hip-hop’s most popular rappers.
- Starting drugs at a younger age has much worse effects on the body and brain compared to an adult with a fully developed brain.
- ‘Along with the steep rise in various pain killers, including Percs, Lortab, and hydrocodone since the mid-2000s, Adderall’s popularity has surged’, explained the researchers.
- This includes the dealer, user, and how the drug affects the community.
- Jarad’s passing reveals a lethal issue that has been plaguing the hip-hop industry for years.
Rap Music
More artists have opened up about mental illness, which often co-occurs with addiction. Mainstream rappers have spoken candidly about topics such as anxiety and depression to raise awareness and eliminate stigma. Before his death from a suspected overdose in 2017, Lil Peep talked about his depression in an interview with Pitchfork. The rapper and YouTube star said that he moved to California to distance himself from the people and places that led to his mental illness. But he continued to battle depressive thoughts, including suicidal ideations. But even its artists, fans and utmost steadfast participants aren’t immune to the pitfalls induced by culture in the United States.
Because of its euphoric properties, a host of rappers over the years — from Eminem to Kanye West — have espoused the drug in music. In songs and interviews, Jay-Z has discussed the ubiquity of drugs he saw while growing up in Brooklyn in the 1980s. The streets of New York were rife with illicit substances, and Jay-Z saw evidence of crack use everywhere. To combat the influence of rap music on teen drug use, Herd recommended that parents monitor their children’s music. She said learning slang terms — such as “angel dust,” code for PCP — could help parents better detect their children’s substance use. These five rappers have taken positive steps to be a part of the rap and hip hop world without substance use.
Several of his songs depict the harsh realities of addiction, but “Drug Dealer” has a special ability to impact listeners. The artist calls out the blind eye that is often turned to music casually depicting drug use, while people are dying from it. “And we dancin’ to a song about our face goin’ numb, But I’ve seen homies turn grey, noses draining blood.” One verse lists a handful of artists who have been lost to varying addictions. “That’s Prince, Michael and Whitney, That’s Amy, Ledger and Pimp C, That’s Yams, that’s DJ AM.” His words paint a staggering picture of the loss that has devastated the music industry for years. Eminem has rappers with drug addictions spoken candidly about his past struggles with substance use. Several other rappers, from Macklemore to Kendrick Lamar, have relayed the dangers of drug abuse through song.
- Much like the battle against COVID-19, the drug and opioid epidemic has created its own host of challenges that influence the music, trends and peripheral creation of the art.
- I think it’s been an unfortunate side effect that so many of them are going to illicit uses.
- He also explains that “I hate it that I need you, Nikki,” which is telling the listener about his cravings and desire for nicotine (line 41).
- The speed at which this disease spread was not matched by our ability to treat it.
- Codeine misuse can cause shallow breathing, lightheadedness, hallucinations or confusion, low cortisol levels and seizures.
In 2020, she launched the LiveFree999 Foundation with the mission of supporting programs that provide preventative measures and address mental health challenges and substance dependency. It shows how they express that Juice WRLD is a legend, the fact that too many rappers are dying and also the fact that he was so young. This seems to be the overall case when we analyse the age of rappers that passed away. Figure 1 shows that every single one was under 40, most of them under 30, with Depzman (Joshua Ribera) being only 18 years old. Now I think just the opposite, that there’s plenty of stories out there.
While Mensa got clean thanks to help from his girlfriend at the time, some of his friends are still dealing with the effects of drug abuse. He said one experiences from seizures and another faces life behind bars after getting high and shooting up a crowded party. Elsewhere, Xanax, also known as happy pills, can be used to take the anxiety-ridden edge off other drugs like Ecstasy and soothe depression and unhappy feelings, making it a choice party drug. And thanks to pill mills, establishments where doctors loosely doled out prescriptions, drugs like Oxy, Vicodin, Percocet, and others weren’t too tough to get as long as one had the money. Users could cycle through several pill mills in one day to maintain their supply for personal use or for sale. Through this project, Herd published an earlier study that found a significant increase in references to alcohol in rap music over the years, and she is now analyzing rap music’s depiction of violence.
