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A Taste of the Past and What Those Guys Were Talking About
Ahh! Remember the good ol’ days? 1983. Grandmaster Flash was at the forefront of a brand new genre, hip-hop. There were also several other artists in the mainstream at the time who composed cutting-edge music with a positive message. This song, entitled White Lines (Don’t Do It), said just that. At a time when hard drugs were entering the urban communities on a larger scale than ever, pop icons felt that it was their duty to be what Chuck D of the popular hip-hop group, Public Enemy, described as “the Black CNN”. It was their responsibility to inform the minorities of inner city America of the dangers and happenings in the world around them.
Honestly, no, I don’t remember those days. I was barely in kindergarten. I was still a few years away from getting my first Beastie Boys album. But as I listen to songs like this today, I ask myself a certain brand of question. Wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to look back upon these days with such yearning nostalgia? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if these times were now, and the mainstream artists of today were bombarding the hip-hop scene with hits that could help mold an entire generation?
As I mentioned above, this song is very straightforward. You can simply read the title of the song to know pretty much exactly what you’re gonna get. Check it out.
Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel – White Lines (Don’t Do It)
This unofficial music video was directed by then unknown film student, Spike Lee, and starred an unknown young actor by the name of Laurence Fishburne.
Aaah, aaah, aaah, aaah)
Please take the time to fill in the following blanks. "________________ is the most frequently self-administered drug in recreational use worldwide today, and yet we know little about how __________________ works in the brain… We do know it is rewarding, can enhance cognition and performance, and induce dependence at the same time." The estimated U.S. cocaine market exceeded $70 billion in street value for the year 2005, exceeding revenues by corporations such as Starbucks.
Oh, the answer above was caffeine. Makes one wonder why we love coffee, yet shun cocaine. Guess it all depends on marketability. Anyway…
Cocaine was introduced into clinical use as a local anesthetic in Germany in 1884, about the same time as Sigmund Freud published his work Uber Coca, in which he wrote that cocaine causes:
“...exhilaration and lasting euphoria, which in no way differs from the normal euphoria of the healthy person...You perceive an increase of self-control and possess more vitality and capacity for work....In other words, you are simply normal, and it is soon hard to believe you are under the influence of any drug....Long intensive physical work is performed without any fatigue...This result is enjoyed without any of the unpleasant after-effects that follow exhilaration brought about by alcohol....Absolutely no craving for the further use of cocaine appears after the first, or even after repeated taking of the drug...”
Freud’s initial analysis would later be proven very wrong, of course.
Organized criminal gangs operating on a large scale dominate the cocaine trade. Most cocaine is grown and processed in South America, particularly in Columbia, Bolivia, and Peru, and smuggled into the US and Europe, the United States being the world’s largest consumer of Cocaine, where it is sold at huge markups; usually in the US at $50-$75 for 1 gram (or a "fifty rock"), and $125-200 for 3.5 grams (1/8th of an ounce, or an "eight ball").
One would be hard pressed to find an “eight ball” of gold that costs more than $125US.
In 1885 the U.S. manufacturer Parke-Davis sold cocaine in various forms, including cigarettes, powder, and even a cocaine mixture that could be injected directly into the user’s veins with the included needle.
In 1903, the American Journal of Pharmacy stressed that most cocaine abusers were “bohemians, gamblers, high- and low-class prostitutes, night porters, bell boys, burglars, racketeers, pimps, and casual laborers.” In 1914, Dr. Christopher Koch of Pennsylvania’s State Pharmacy Board made the racial innuendo explicit, testifying that, “Most of the attacks upon the white women of the South are the direct result of a cocaine-crazed Negro brain.” Mass media manufactured an epidemic of cocaine use among African Americans in the Southern United States to play upon racial prejudices of the era, though there is little evidence that such an epidemic actually took place.
In early 20th-century Memphis, Tennessee, cocaine was sold in neighborhood drugstores on Beale Street, costing five or ten cents for a small boxful. Stevedores along the Mississippi River used the drug as a stimulant, and white employers encouraged its use by black laborers.
- Barlow, William. "Looking Up At Down": The Emergence of Blues Culture. Temple University Press (1989), p. 207.
Cocaine dependence (or addiction) is physical and psychological dependency on the regular use of cocaine. It can result in physiological damage, lethargy, psychosis, depression, or a potentially fatal overdose.
Smoking freebase is a popular route of ingestion because the cocaine is absorbed immediately into blood via the lungs, reaching the brain in about five seconds. The rush is much more intense than snorting the same amount of cocaine nasally, but the effects do not last as long. The peak of the freebase rush is over almost as soon as the user exhales the vapor, but the high typically lasts 5–10 minutes afterward. What makes freebasing particularly dangerous is that users typically do not wait that long for their next hit and will continue to smoke freebase until none is left.
This lyric refers to car manufacturer John DeLorean, who in 1982 became involved in a scheme to save his company from bankruptcy using drug money. He was arrested by the FBI for trying to buy 24 kilos of cocaine, but successfully defended himself against the charges as he proved his alleged involvement was because of entrapment by federal agents.”
When you hear about an athlete dying suddenly and the autopsy reports that he had a heart attack with multiple dead areas in the heart and dilated cardiomyopathy, think of cocaine.
One of the first to get mainstream radio airplay in Britain was White Lines (Don't Do It), released in 1983 by Grandmaster Melle Mel and the Furious Five, which warned of the dangers of cocaine. But nine years later Dr Dre's 1992 gangsta rap album The Chronic - regarded as one of the most influential hip-hop records of all time - was littered with drug references.
Like most drugs, cocaine lowers your inhibitions and impairs your judgment. This means that things that you normally wouldn't do suddenly seem like a good idea, including sex… The coke may make you feel like the king of the world, but a scorching case of herpes or gonorrhea will make you feel like crap.
Grandmaster flash was a known user of cocaine. Does this make him a hypocrite? I say no. Youth, these days, are less likely to listen to their parents’ guidance than ever before. Whether or not society is willing to admit it, we are living during times in which pop culture, especially music, has a huge influence on the decision making processes of children starting as early as elementary school.
Why do parents tell their children to certain things and to avoid others? Usually, their knowledge stems from experience. The same holds true for the artist of this song. He knows about the euphoric high that cocaine provides, and thus how easy it is to become hooked on the drug. And after he got hooked, he saw all the problems that come along with addiction. He doesn’t want children to follow his path, so he discourages them from using, frying their brains, having irresponsible sex, throwing away all their money, getting significant jail time, and worse.
Along with the lyrics of this song, I have provided some facts I found interesting as well as a number of reference websites that deal with the realities of cocaine.
History of Cocaine: http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/coc02.htm
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocaine
Song facts: http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=2807
Brown University: http://www.brown.edu/Student_Services/Health_Services/Health_Education/atod/od_cocaine.htm
Cocaine FAQ’s: http://www.thegooddrugsguide.com/cocaine/faq.htm
How Cocaine Kills Athletes: http://www.drmirkin.com/archive/6210.html
How rap music has gone from condemning drug use to glorifying it: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23471172-details/How+rap+music+has+gone+from+condemning+drug+use+to+glorifying+it/article.doSimilarities of coffee and cocaine: http://www.nutraingredients.com/Research/Coffee-acts-just-like-cocaine-says-scientistGold Prices: http://www.usagold.com/gold/price.html
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