Comatose Culture is Killing Us
In the midst of the holidays season dying down and fresh off of the inevitable “New Year New Me” declarations worldwide, a somber cloud still lingers over the Black music community.
We’ve heard this cautionary tale so much that the shock of it wears off a lot quicker, almost as soon as the headlines change. Another career cut short, far shorter than any of us expected. Another dream permanently deferred and all the potential with it. Another young, vibrant life lost prematurely at the hands of the drugs they glorified in life.
When the recent news broke of rapper Juice Wrld’s at just 21 years old, death due to a seizure I, like many of my friends, knew what it was likely caused by. And before I read any further into the details surrounding his death I asked my girls, “when will enough be enough with these artists playing with drugs?” And as judgmental as that question may be, I asked it out of pure exhaustion from our people losing so many beautiful and talented souls to a lifestyle that has proven to be damaging at best, and lethal at worst, over and over again.
Rapper and Singer Mac Miller died from an overdose in 2018.
By now most of us know the details of Juice’s death which came at a time where he was seemingly elevating to the peak of his career, having just come off of the success of his hit records “Lucid Dreams” and “All Girls Are The Same” which earned him a multi million dollar contract with Interscope records. His fans are now left to wonder what might have been and it’s a bittersweet sorrow that we’ve felt just a year ago with the death of rapper and singer Mac Miller who overdosed and died at 26. The year prior to his death, we lost rapper Lil Peep at 21. We’ve felt this pain before that with the loss of Prince and before him the loss of both Whitney Houston and her daughter Bobbi Kristina. Before that we lost ODB, Pimp C and DJ Screw.
“Satan in your soul, let it take control / OxyContin fiends keep the foil low / Let the pill burn inhale, exhale it slow / Let your heart explode drop ya to the floor.” -Schoolboy Q
UGK Rapper Pimp C died from a seizure caused by an overdose in 2007.
This piece isn’t informational since I know most of us already know the tragic details of these deaths. Hell, most of us remember where we were when we heard the news. I yelled across my office when I heard Michael Jackson had been found. I sat in silence when I heard Whitney passed. I cried through the night for Prince. But MJ, Whitney and Prince’s deaths, as tragic and avoidable as they were still don’t belong to the disturbing trend contributing to overdoses as of late.
No, these deaths, from much a much younger cohort, can be contributed to Hip Hop’s drug culture and it’s insistent glorification of addiction.
You know the songs—”Percocet, Molly, Percocet.” You know the drugs of choice and their many names: lean, sizzurp, dirty sprite, molly, percs, xans, addy, fentanyl etc. It’s like the heroine and crack rage of the 90’s simply transferred into a new wave of more potent and more fatal drugs. We know exactly what we’re helping glorify and yet most of us (myself included) let it bop anyway.
“As babies we went from Similac and Enfamil / To the internet and fentanyl.” -Black Thought
Wu-Tang Clan Rapper ODB who died from an overdose. in 2004.
But at what cost? When we think of the real life consequences of living that kind of lifestyle, is the clout justified? And that’s not to say we’re directly responsible for any of these deaths. But we as the consumers do have the power to change the climate. We have the power to stop streaming and reciting recipes that kill in reality. We have the power to stop normalizing or making it cool to be numb, high or incoherent on a regular basis as a way of life. This culture of avoidance and using drugs as band aids has permeated our culture just as rapidly and deeply as the addiction epidemic. And if we don’t start addressing the damage it does, particularly to our young people, we will continue to lose the brightest among us.
