Hip Hop & The Crack Epidemic

Heroin & Cocaine

• James Brown – King Heroin• Cocaine – Kurtis Blow, LL Cool J, J-Ski Love• Glamour• Expensive - $80-90,000 /kg

Freebase aka Crack

• Ability to smoke it – more potent• Complicated chemical process• Freeway Ricky Ross – baking soda instead of

ether• Mass production – cheap - $10 a rock

1984

• Ronald Raegan – US president• Recession – Tax breaks for rich, cutbacks for

poor

Dealers

• Snoop, RZA, Biggie, Raekwon, Ice-T, Jay-Z• Role models• Scarface – Tony Montana – Rags to riches

story

Media Hype

• More addictive – crazy things to get it• Violence/crime – few neighborhoods in big

cities• Media frenzy – focus on black neighborhoods

- fear of black threat

War On Drugs

• Violence – shootouts – becoming an epidemic• Ronald Raegan – war on drugs • Demonized - More punishment, evil• Long prison terms – 5 yrs for 5 grams – 100:1• “Just say NO” - Hollywood

Music

• Dealer became very rich – loaned $ to kids to press records

• Too $hort, Schooly D, BDP (KRS One) – rappers became reporter – opposite from media

• Fashion – gold chains, Gucci, MCM, LV

LA Gangs

• Drugs from Nicaragua – fast food style work• Crack multiplied gangs – Crips/Bloods• Weapons in the hood – Uzi, AK-47• LAPD – police militarization – Batteram• NWA – story tellers

Late 80s – Early 90s• Crack wiping out black America• Public Enemy – Baseheads – zombies• COPS – TV show• George Bush Sr – Increased prisons – mass

incarceration• Police out of control – 1992 – Rodney King

Prisons• 1986 laws – largest prison population in the

world• Disproportionally black• 2010 – Obama reduced ratio – 18:1• 2014 – trying to reduce sentences