Within the past several years, it's been more than evident that hip-hop went from rapping about moving drugs to rapping about using drugs. As the "flippin' birds" and "pushing keys" references became more and more sparse, the "pill poppin'" and "lean sippin'" became more prominent in youth culture.
You can't really blame the rappers from falling back on the dealerisms -- most of them weren't even born when crack had its destructive grip on the hood. Factor in the lengthy prison sentences the kids saw their OGs getting hit with and the drug game became less and less enticing. Check and credit scams are the new "hustlin' on the corner" if you ask me, but that's a whole other story.
No longer were pushers able to clock several thousand dollars by just posting up on a corner or in the trap for a night or two. Quite the opposite. You're more likely to make minimum wage numbers and catch a hefty prison sentence if caught -- then to rake in enough cash for that down payment on an Benz S550. "The drug game not lit like that," says aware young gunner Dave East. "No one is out here making Gz on the daily like they did back in the days."
Still, the drug references are there in Hip-Hop, only now more often as consumers than of purveyors. Lil Wayne's "I Feel Like Dying" signaled the ushering in of a new era, and the new rappers after him embraced the drug movement.
Today with some of hip-hop's most popular rappers -- like Future -- shouting out their favorite controlled substances on songs with pride. We want the youth to live, but it seems that Codeine and Xanax influenced mode of rapping is here to stay for now. VIBE looked at a number of talent in 2015 that were not shy about celebrating hard drug usage in their rhymes. Not as a judgement, more of an observation. This is who we came up with.
