From DJ Screw to Lil Pump: How Lean Became Hip-Hop’s Addiction

Jacques: From Soundcloud to radio, lean seems to be everywhere.
The drug is mentioned in over 30% of the rap songs that reached the top 10 of Billboard’s
Hot 100 in 2017.
Lean, also known as syrup, sizzurp, purple drank, barre, mud, actavis, and hi-tech is
a mixture of prescription strength promethazine and codeine cough syrup, with soda or candy.
According to a 2013 study of 2,300 students in the Southeast,
6.5% of them had tried lean.
Its widespread abuse forced the pharmaceutical company, Actavis
to pull its popular brand, Prometh in 2014.
This drove its street value to thousands of dollars, sparking robberies of pharmacies
across the nation.
The cocktail originated in Houston, Texas years before it was ever mentioned in rap.
Agony Life: It’s not a fad, it’s just a way of life.
I mean, syrup been around here before y’all was born.
[Freeze] We known for it, it’s something we do. But you know, it’s not the only place,
but we definitely did put the light on it.
Jacques: In the late 80s and early 90s, Houston artist DJ Screw, born Robert Earl Davis Jr.,
pioneered a style of hip-hop called “chopped and screwed,” which slowed music down to
a crawl to quote.
"...hear what the rapper is saying."
The incredibly prolific Screw made hundreds of popular remix projects called “screw tapes.”
His team called the Screwed Up Click, including Big Moe, Big Hawk, Trae tha Truth, Z-Ro and
others, sold thousands of tapes out of the trunks of their cars and
eventually in local stores around Houston.
DJ Screw was known to use lean and many of his songs contained mentions of the drug.
In 2000, Texas rap duo UGK linked up with Memphis’ Three 6 Mafia
to release “Sippin on Some Sizzurp.”
“Sippin On Some Syrup” peaked at No. 30 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart
and introduced the drug to a national audience.
Nine months after the track’s release, lean claimed its first major casualty:
29-year-old DJ Screw.
The medical examiner said Screw died of a codeine overdose,
but his friends thought it wasn’t the only culprit.
In the years since Screw’s death, lean was also connected to the deaths of Big Moe and Pimp C.
Bun B: While it wasn’t solely the cause of his death,
we have to be very real of the consequences to some of these things.
Jacques: While the causes of these deaths are debatable, it’s clear Houston’s music
popularized the drug. In the mid 2000s, it entered the mainstream in a new way.
Houston rap’s influence had a special impact on other southern artists.
[Lil Wayne] I was also young and listening to Pimp C and they said,
‘We was drinking that lean.’
It made me want to drink the lean.
I respected it the day I picked it up because I knew this is a culture.
[Jacques] As Lil Wayne’s popularity exploded, his affinity for lean spread across the South.
Future has named many of his projects after the drug, including “Dirty Sprite 1 & 2.”
And he’s rapped about being in the throws of addiction.
However, none of this was Wayne’s intention.
[Lil Wayne] I don’t want to be known as the innovator of syrup or whatever.
[Jacques] Houston’s music and lean culture also influenced New York’s A$AP Yams and Rocky.
Over time, we saw more of lean’s dark side.
In 2015, A$AP Yams passed away in his sleep, due to an accidental drug overdose.
Like Pimp C and DJ Screw before him, Yams was known to indulge in codeine.
He also abused xanax and other drugs.
[A$AP Rocky] We put Yams In rehab.
We were working and you know he started getting back on his black out boy shit.
[Jacques] Withdrawal from lean is crippling.
[Gucci Mane] You know, drying out from drinking lean, I don’t know, I guess
it's probably the worst feeling in the world.
You know, it tear your body down, it tear your mind down.
It’s just terrible, terrible pain.
[Jacques] The pain it causes has led some to compare lean to another opiate.
[Trippie Redd] Don’t do lean.
Don’t do lean...please don’t do lean bruh, that shit is liquid heroin.
[Jacques] While the two drugs are opiates, there is one major difference.
[Ron Peters] Now, if someone is doing heroin, they’re going to look at them and
say, 'Man, what’s wrong with this guy?'
But if somebody has a little lean in their cup, that’s a player.
You drinking player potion.
They’re opiates but one has high social approval and the other one doesn’t.
[Jacques] But that social approval may be fading.
Even so-called lean rappers are distancing themselves.
[Future] I’m not like super drugged out or a drug addict.
My music may portray a certain kind of image.
And I know it’s some people that may be super drugged out
and they listen to the music, thinking, ‘Ay thank you, he's speaking for me.’
And some people that's not, and they're thinking, ‘I don’t have to do drugs,
I can listen to Future and feel like I’m on something.’
[Jacques] Other rappers have spoken out against lean altogether.
[Wiz Khalifa] This for the people that don’t fuck with that shit, feel empowered.
Know, lean is definitely lame.
[Jacques] But, maybe we should just listen to those who know best.
[Lil Keke] We literally invented syrup and soda.
We’ve seen the real deaths, the real people losing their lives.
The real families, the real robberies, we’ve really seen it behind this drug.
The worst is yet to come.
[Jacques] I’m Jacques Morel with Genius News, bringing you the meaning
and the knowledge behind the music. Peace!
[Lil Pump] Listen up y'all, we playing lean pong.
2018.
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From DJ Screw to Lil Pump: How Lean Became Hip-Hop’s Addiction | Genius News

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