Hip-hop Drug Use Explained

ALIVE AND WELL, MAYBE? –

Jan. 21, 2021 – Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, was the cause of 151 deaths in our county in 2019 compared to the 92 deaths reported the year before, said the November report. While 275 deaths occurred in 2019 due to prescription drugs — opioids and non-opioids — up from 245 the year prior.

In 2019, San Diego hip-hop heads transitioned from bobbin’ heads to rapper-Juice Wrld’s “Lucid Dreams” to bowing heads and mourning the 21-year-old rapper’s death, which was allegedly caused by ingesting Percocet pain pills.

“Some people feel they need to imitate what’s hot to be a part of the culture,” says Kahlee, “so they overindulge in drug use leading to anything from unproductivity to death.”

Mainstream hip-hop heads dying via overdosing goes back. Rapper and singer Rob Pilatus of Milli Vanilli reportedly battled drug addiction before his 1998 death in Germany which was attributed to booze and prescription drugs. In 2004, Ol’ Dirty Bastard from the Wu-Tang Clan was said to have died of an accidental overdose of a mixture of “coke and a prescribed opioid.”

Kahlee310, the Mira Mesa-based host of Dash Radio hip-hop show BarsWeekly, recalls, “I came up with a few artists who got stuck on pills, to the point that when I had a bad back, my homie wouldn’t give me any painkillers ’cause he didn’t want me to get hooked the way some of our mutual rap friends were. I have a close friend who was dropped from his label over his addiction to various pain killers.”