New Study on Hip Hop Music and Drugs Released

A new study suggests that hip hop music has increasingly glamorized the use of illegal drugs, portraying marijuana, crack and cocaine as symbols of wealth and status, according to a new study by the journal Addiction Research & Theory.

::crickets::

The study found that rappers had moved away from lyrics that warn against drug use, an approach that was more common in hip hop during the early days of the genre, reports Reuters.   

After sampling 341 lyrics from rap music’s most popular hits between 1979 and 1997, the researchers found references to drugs had increased six-fold over that period.

Of the 38 most popular songs between 1979 and 1984, only four contained drug references. But by the late 1980s the incidence had increased to 19 percent, and after 1993 nearly 70 percent of rap songs mentioned drug use.

Lyrics describing drug use have not only become more frequent but the context changed from concern about the devastation of drugs to a more positive portrayal. For example, Grandmaster Flash’s “White Lines,” recorded in 1983, warns cocaine does nothing except “killin’ your brain,” but more recent tunes by popular rappers such as 50 Cent’s “As the World Turns” refers to cocaine and heroin as positive things.