According to the police report, Lil Peep’s manager said that he took a nap before his Tuscan show scheduled last Wednesday evening. She came to check on him shortly after and he was snoring and breathing without issue. After making an unsuccessful attempt to wake him, she decided to let him sleep longer. Later that night, Peep’s other manager came to check on him, only this time he was completely unresponsive. His team began CPR but it was too late. He died from an accidental overdose. When the cops arrived on the scene, they discovered several Xanax pills, marijuana, and an unidentified tan powder on the rapper’s tour bus. Lil’ Peep was only 21 years old.
After news of his death got out, many fellow artists and fans took to social media to express their grief. It is clear that he was well-loved and appreciated by many people.
Lil’ Peep is only one of many artists who’ve publicly expressed and displayed feelings of depression and anxiety. As mental health disorders become more prominent in Hip-Hop, many popular artists have expressed the temporary comfort they find in designer drugs such as ecstasy (Molly), promethazine and codeine (Lean) and Xanax, which as a result, have become glorified in ways that is steering Hip-Hop in a strange direction.
Which leads to, Miami, Florida rapper, Lil’ Pump, who celebrated reaching 1 million followers on Instagram with a Xanax-themed cake. 5 months later, he celebrated reaching 4 million followers with a cake designed as a bottle of lean. Although Pump’s obsession with these drugs are not accompanied by expressed symptoms of depression or any other mental disorder, it’s a close representation of a lot of Hip Hop’s popular new artists mindsets. Lil’ Uzi’s “XO Tour Llif3” recently went 4x Platinum, but within the lyrics of the trending song is a clear cry out for help. In the first verse, Uzi raps, “She say I’m insane, yeah / I might blow my brain out / Xanny help the pain, yeah / Please, Xanny, make it go away / I’m committed, not addicted but it keep control of me / All the pain, now I can’t feel it / I swear that it’s slowin’ me”. Other artists such as Lil’ Wayne (who’ve suffered from multiple seizures due to his drug use) Future, Kanye West, Eminem, Kid Cudi, Juicy J, Joe Budden, Spooky Black, XXXTentacion, Kevin Gates, and many others have admitted to their mental health sufferings or used their music to express that their drug use is a means of coping with their mental disorder. There’s a dark and sinister edge to Hip Hop now and labels, as well as the listeners, are eating it up.
Is Hip Hop always going to be an outlet for artists to express their involvement in selling drugs, and as we’ve been seeing more of lately, their personal usage? And at what point do we realize the effects it has on the culture? Hip Hop will always be appreciated for the genuine message the artists convey through their music, but as a lover of Hip Hop, I feel more should be done in order to save our suffering artists who have far more influence than most may realize, which ultimately will save those who may be negatively impacted by their music and brings a more positive light to the popular genre. The labels may not care of the lives that are lost, but Hip Hop enthusiasts as well as the artists have to speak up and come together in order to incite change. We can’t stand by and glorify what took away the lives of those we love the most, nor can we continue to accept this as our culture’s reality.
RIP to Pimp C, A$AP Yams, Capital Steez, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, our newest angel, Lil’ Peep, as well as anyone else who’ve lost their life from mental disorder or drug addiction.