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In 2000, "purple drank," a concoction of prescription medicines was introduced to mainstream Hip Hop. The genre has seemingly always had a relationship with drug content, earlier Hip Hop artists glorified upward financial mobility of selling drugs, whereas some contemporary artists exploit achievements via the consumption of drugs. In other words, there has been a cultural shift from being the drug distributor to drug consumer in Hip Hop. Celebration of drug consumption creates a new forum of deviant and criminal performance within the genre, which challenges previous Hip Hop culture. Furthermore, this promotion of drug use and emersion with societal goals of wealth, status, and prestige, offers a space for discourse about the creation of "apathetic resistance" within Hip Hop culture. Finally, this must be measured by the context of understanding how the intersection of race, gender, class and respectability plays into Hip Hop's reception compared to other musical genres' relationship with drug consumption..
While Hip Hop scholarship has grown and continues to develop, there has been minimal academic discourse that challenges the issue of hard-drug consumption from the perspective of the narrator (e.g. MC/rapper). Hence, the objective of this article is to initiate a dialogue about the trajectory of Hip Hop in contemporary society and as a cultural movement based-on political and social expression, particularly with the incorporation of drug consumption by the narrator (e.g. M.C.). In no way does this article speak for all of Hip Hop as a musical form or culture aesthetic1 but highlights the complexities and intricacies that form within this particular sub-set that addresses lyrics and lifestyle choices based on the perspective of the drug consumer as opposed to the traditional drug distributor. Therefore, analysis of lyrical content and lifestyle of artists is important to investigate the relationship drug consumption has with Hip Hop.
In December 2007, Texas-based rapper Chad "Pimp C" Butler died in a West Hollywood hotel room. According to the Los Angeles County Coroner's office, "the combination of codeine and promethazine found in the rapper's system, coupled with the sleep disorder apnea, caused his death."2 Pimp C along with Bernard "Bun B" Freeman formed the Underground Kingz (UGK), an influential voice in the growth of Southern Hip Hop. His untimely death resulted partly from his...