This is part four of a theGrio series on hip-hop and its cultural impact on black America. Click here for part one of the series.
After suffering a seizure on March 12th, Lil Wayne spent the past week at Los Angeles’ Cedar-Sinai Hospital recovering while his Young Money record label camp split their time supporting their ailing front man and attempting to squelch speculation that his hospitalization was a result of a codeine overdose.
As Wayne laid in intense care, the Young Money team and parent company Cash Money went on the defensive.
Young Money president Mack Maine took to Twitter to try and clear things up, debunking rumors that the rapper was near death. Cash Money CEO Brian “Birdman” Williams told New York’s HOT 97 that the seizure had nothing to do with drugs and was a product of Lil Wayne’s intense work ethic.
Even if we take Young Money’s word for it, the incident has thrust hip-hop’s glorification of drinking prescription cough syrup mixed with soda and pills (also known as “sizzurp,” “purple drank,” “Texas tea” and “dirty Sprite”) into the spotlight once again. Fans aren’t just speculating on Weezy but revisiting incidents like fellow rapper Rick Ross’ history of seizures.
Both artists have been associated with the hazardous concoction but have attributed the source of their hospitalizations to unrelated health issues.
“Why in the hell should I ever stop drinking what’s in my cup? It’s in my cup. I think people need to mind their own business,” Lil Wayne said when ‘purple drank’ was brought up during a 2009 VH1 Behind The Music special.
The “How to Love” rapper has even made love songs dedicated to the substance.
Still, many are left wondering whether it will take another prominent face dying for “sizzurp” drinkers to snap out of it.
It’s impossible to tell the story of hip-hop and ignore the influence of drugs on the culture.
Drugs and hip-hop have been intertwined since the culture’s infancy. In many ways, drugs have helped fund the art, shaped the perspective, and dictated the fashion sense of hip-hop. But much like music is cyclical, every drug de jour reaches a breaking point.
The destruction caused by crack cocaine created a prism for the artistry of hip-hop to blossom. The community had the opportunity to make music that was a genuine reflection its woes and used the platform to say what needed to be said. Crack, for better or worse, advanced the culture of hip-hop. But can the same be said for the current generation of artists?
Hip-hop’s drug de jour isn’t a new phenomenon, but its prominence is indelibly linked with the South’s ascent to hip-hop’s forefront since the early 2000’s.
Houston’s DJ Screw, best known as the creator of the chopped-and-screwed sound, died in 2000 from an overdose of the prescription-only, codeine-containing cough medicine Promethazine.
Ironically, the same year the term sizzurp was thrust into the national lexicon when Three 6 Mafia released “Sippin’ on Some Syrup” (complete with a video featuring baby bottles filled with brown liquid) and ‘lean’ made ears perk up on Jay-Z and UGK’s smash hit “Big Pimpin’.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw5PwyZi-zs
In the 13 years since, many things about the drug have evolved and its availability has risen.
The image of double-stacked Styrofoam cups has become any international symbol for “sippin’ lean,” but despite major deaths like the late Pimp C of UGK and health other scares, hip-hop seems no more deterred from the recreational intoxicant and if anything, the allure is growing.
Nearly a decade ago, the University of Texas found that 8.3 percent of secondary school students in Texas had taken codeine syrup to get high.
A unscientific poll today would show that since then, the notoriety of “lean culture” and it’s widespread acceptance in hip-hop circles has ballooned.
The lean generation has entered the mainstream. Rappers like A$AP Rocky have grown up in the thick of it, and despite being from Harlem, Houston’s influence permeates his style and music.
Spawned from DJ Screw’s sound, the drug’s staying power has proven to be just as strong as the South’s stranglehold on mainstream airwaves. But what can be done about an issue that’s become the backdrop of an entire musical landscape?
A recent Los Angeles Times story credited the diminishing role of violence in hip-hop to rappers being more open about their vulnerability. The counter argument to that is much of the violence we have grown accustomed to hearing in hip-hop has been replaced by prescription drug abuse, most notably, lean, pills, marijuana, and more recently, molly.
While it is positive to see rappers aren’t dying over bars anymore, rappers haven’t turned a new leaf, they’ve found new vices. Is it encouraging that knowing the reason behind peace in the hip-hop community is more closely linked with being too busy partying and popping pills than maturity alone?
This is hip-hop’s Studio 54 era. The real test of the culture will be how it comes out on the other end or, frankly, who makes it to the other side.
Living in an era where YOLO is reason enough to try anything, substituting the quick death of gun violence for the slow burn of drug abuse is hardly a proper alternative, but it seems to be the one hip-hop has settled on until it too betrays the culture, like crack before it.
@mikemccray | social media coordinator | the fayetteville observer | 910.609.0649