Pusha T has put his own spin on the 1983 Melle Mel classic, “White Lines (Don’t Do It),” for new movie Cocaine Bear.
The track — which released today (Feb. 24), the same day as the film — showcases the Virginia spitter rapping about the plot of the film: a cocaine-filled duffle bag falling from an airplane and being confiscated by a bear.
On the movie’s soundtracked song, Pusha raps, “I ain’t never been a runner, we ain’t never had to wonder/You heard the pilot lost the load, call that dumb and dumber/ It’s no storm without thunder, the bear crawls up and under/ Cocaine overload, the only fuel to his hunger.”
Loosely based on true events of an American black bear ingesting the fallen cocaine in 1985 and dying, Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Isiah Whitlock Jr., and the late Ray Liotta bring Cocaine Bear‘s storyline to life.
“‘White Lines’ is a record about the use and abuse of cocaine,” Melle Mel stated in a 1984 interview. “But it is good that people know that when they do get high — I can’t tell people what to do — but at least when they do it, they know that they doing the wrong thing to their body and as far as society and whatnot. So that’s why we made the record, you know, in good faith. It’s a real touchy subject, but somebody had to do it, so we did it.”
The song made it to No. 47 on the Billboard Hot Black Singles chart and peaked at No. 7 on the UK Singles Chart, going on to become the 13th best-selling single of 1984.
Take a listen to the Pusha T’s version of the 1983 hit above and check out the trailer for Cocaine Bear below.
