A new study has flipped, turned upside down our perceptions about drugs in popular music. According to Addictions.com, who ran through a bevy of data mined from SongMeanings, it turns out that there are less references to drugs in rap music than every other genre out there. That’s right, less than rock, less than jazz, and way less than country, which shockingly took the number one spot. There are more references to drugs in folk music than there is in rap. Folk music!
The study found that, on average, allusions to illegal substances pop up 1.6 percent of the time in country music. For rap, they only pop up 1.3 percent of the time. That being said, when you dig deeper into the data, you find that most of the top artists who tend to mention drugs are mostly all rappers. The Game has 125 mentions of marijuana in his songs, followed by 124 by Cypress Hill, 113 by Bones-Thugs-N-Harmony, and then Redman with 109 references.
Too Short was the king of cocaine with 85 references — somewhere Pusha T is very disappointed in himself — Tyga mentioned ecstasy the most, Method Man and The Wu-Tang Clan were the dual kings of acid, while Eminem slipped in the most allusions to pills. Actually, that last one makes a lot of sense.
As for the artists who mentioned drugs the most overall in their music, Kottonmouth Kings reign supreme with 440 mentions. In second place is Eminem, followed by The Game, Lil Wayne and then Jay Z.
You can check out all the results from the study here.
