3 Rappers Who Were Destroyed by Drugs

“I'm going crazy 'bout it, I'm going codeine crazy.”

These were the lyrics from one of Future’s songs, Codeine Crazy. In the industry, rappers talk about their drug use and glamorize it in their music videos. However, not all of them are lucky enough to keep funding their drug usage before their career or lives get completely destroyed. Drugs are a problem in the industry and here are some rappers who got destroyed by it.

Juice Wrld was one of the most beloved rappers in the industry while he was alive. His music evoked a deep emotion of sadness and made his fans, especially emo folks, feel seen and validated. His life mirrored the kind of music he created.

When Juice was three, his father left and his mother became a single mum to him and his brother. By the time Juice was in the sixth grade, he started drinking lean and by 2013, he was already doing percocet. Juice Wrld was born in 1998 so in 2013, he was 15 and doing percocet and xanax.

Juice Wrld’s grew up in a conservative family where his mum didn’t let him listen to hip-hop for a while, just metal and other non-rapping genres. When Juice finally started listening to rap, he started with Future and Gucci Mane and those artists rap heavily about drugs. According to Juice Wrld, his first introduction to drugs was through music and considering how impressionable children are, it was only a matter of time before he started looking up to those musicians as role models.

When Juice Wrld came on to the music scene, he created a persona for himself as the quiet kid who had deep thoughts, but he now had a means to fuel his drug problems. The more money he made in music, the more opioids and marijuana he took. In fact, he got so heavy into drugs that the people around him started to worry.

Some of his friends and associates tried to do an intervention for him by letting him know that he was trying too hard to chase the high.

Juice Wrld then decided that maybe it was time to go to rehab and get his life in order, but he didn’t know that tragedy was about to strike.

On December 8, 2019, Juice Wrld had been doing so many drugs in his private plane while on his way from LA. The pilot of the plane called the Chicago police, as that seemed to be his destination, and reported that there were illegal drugs and guns on the plane. The cops were planning to search the plane when it landed at the Chicago Midway airport. However, they never got the chance to apprehend Juice Wrld because when the plane landed and he stepped down, he fell unconscious.

He died on the way to the hospital. While the toxicology results were not publicly revealed at the time, people with him on the plane claimed that he had been overdosing on drugs and popped some percocet pills before getting down from the plane. Police found around 70 pounds of marijuana on the plane.

It was eventually confirmed that Juice Wrld died of a drug overdose at the age of 21. Right now, his music catalog is up for sale.

DMX was one of the successful rappers around the early days of hip-hop, although it took a while for him to find his footing in the industry. All of his problems started when his mother became the first person that physically abused him as a child. During that time, he was also diagnosed with bronchial asthma, but that didn’t stop the abuse he had to endure.

His mother sent him off to live with relatives when he was 5. DMX was sent to a group home when he was ten, which affected his grade in middle school until he failed out. When he turned 15, he decided to give school a chance again but he couldn’t cope and kept on having bad grades. He tried to join the track and field team, but there was no hope for him because of his bad grades. DMX started stealing from his mates to survive and lived in bins because he couldn’t go to an abusive home.

It was during this period of his life that he met Ready Ron and his life would change for the worse.

DMX was good at beatboxing and when he met Ready Ron, they started working together. They performed on the streets and at different community centers. DMX would beatbox while Ron rapped. Eventually, Ron’s career as a rapper started kicking off and DMX decided to follow the same path too.

Shortly after DMX met Ready Ron when he was 14, he hung out with the rapper who was smoking a blunt with his friends. Mind you, Ron was like 30 years old and DMX was 14. But Ron passed the blunt to DMX and that was when his life of addiction started. DMX had no idea that the blunt was laced with crack but it gave him a new feeling, which he spent the remainder of his life chasing.

As DMX became relevant in the industry, he became yet another rapper that could fund his drug problem. By 2019, he had to cancel a lot of live performances and check himself into rehab because his struggle with crack had taken a toll on his life. But coming out of rehab didn’t stop him from doing drugs as he already admitted to himself that he could never stop being an addict.

Then tragedy struck on April 2nd when he was rushed to the hospital for accidental drug overdose and suffered a heart attack. He died after fighting for his life for a week on April 9th, 2014 and the industry started mourning. The sad part about DMX’s life was that people knew about his addiction but there was nothing they could do to help him. He died at the age of 50 without knowing what it was like to be sober.

Coolio

If you remember the intro of the song above, that means you listened to Coolio at a certain stage in your life. Before he became the Coolio you know now, he was once a boy who grew up in abject poverty.

After his parents got divorced when he was eight years old, his mother moved him and his siblings to Compton, California. In Compton, he was introduced to street life and just like every other rapper like him that grew up in the community, it was rough for him.

In the 1980s, Compton began to decline and Coolio was introduced to crack. Considering how strong crack hits, it was only a matter of time before Coolio got addicted and his life started to decline too. He then moved to stay with his father and got off crack and decided to volunteer at a fire station in hopes of changing his life. He even became a christian and attributed his recovery at the time to the religion but it was only a matter of time before he relapsed.

In 1987, Coolio released his first single, Whatcha Gonna Do and spiraled into drugs again. This time, he had a way to fund his dealer and really went deep, doing not just crack but also fentanyl. Although he checked himself into rehab, he declined again after releasing Gangsta’s Paradise and fell into old habits. Despite being a celebrity, he and some friends robbed a German clothing store and assaulted the owner.

In 2009, he grabbed an officer’s arm when his luggage was being searched and he was charged with battery and also cocaine possession. It was as if Coolio could not stay out of trouble and it affected his career. Even if he was releasing new songs and appearing on TV shows, it was hard for him to get under control and address his drug usage.

Coolio tried to get help by quitting smoking crack from time to time but he would always find himself going back due to depression. Everything eventually blew up in his face on September 28, 2022, when he was found lifeless on the bathroom floor of his friend’s house. Upon further investigation, it turned out that he died of accidental overdose of fentanyl, heroin, and methamphetamine. He also had cardiomyopathy, chronic asthma and smoked cigarettes, all of which contributed to his death.

Outro

Drugs have been a constant problem in hip-hop and seeing how rappers glamorize it, it’s an indication of trouble for a generation of people that listen to them. If you struggle with drug abuse, seek the necessary help and remember that you are not alone.

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