On Poppin’ Mollies, Social Mobility, and Hip-Hop/Rap
It’s been three months since Trinidadian rapper Trinidad James first introduced us to “Molly” with a quick line and shoulder flex. Since then, I’ve sat in on a few otherwise doleful All Gold Everything listening sessions, only to be prompted with: “what the hell is a Molly?” All conversations following have been in the same vein with people either ignorant to Molly’s existence or hesitant to “her” arrival. No one, especially the hip-hop/rap community, has an idea on what to do with the once-raver’s secret, now chorus fodder.
I did what I’ve always done: kept my mouth closed and my ears open. Plenty of conversations about Molly and its budding relationship with rap/hip-hop are taking place, but what interests me the most is Molly’s relationship with all of rap/hip-hop’s usual narcotics. Since its introduction to the mainstream via James, Molly has slowly become a selling point for other famous rappers (French Montana, Kanye West, Juicy J), and simultaneously changed the commentary surrounding drugs and hip-hop and rap.
Molly as a drug interests me; as the purest form of MDMA, the drug commonly found in ecstasy, it is differentiates immediately from weed and crack cocaine on both a social and economic level, which makes its intersection with the hip-hop/rap community—and, by some extension, the Black community—fascinating. It does not work or get passed around like weed or crack, is not used for the same end purpose (Molly produces a prolonged euphoric effect versus weed’s calming properties/crack’s intense-but-short highs) and even differentiates in physical appearance (pills versus “buds”/”nuggets” and “pieces.”) Molly, like ecstasy, runs a little higher on the price chart and thus might be a little more difficult to find.
Yet, despite these differences, plenty wonder if molly is the “new weed”; that is, if molly is claiming some misconceived throne at the top of the hip-hop narcotic tower. It’s a considerable wonder to have; it’s possible it might have a huge effect on the socioeconomic background of hip-hop/rap and the way it is perceived in mainstream music. What does it mean when a more expensive, more processed drug takes a spotlight in the center of a genre that has ties to the low-income, low status lives of Black Americans? What does it mean when “suburban drugs” find a home in low-income neighborhoods—is this a new development or another reflection of suburbanites infatuation with rap/hip-hop?
(There’s an intersection of race in this discussion as well [which I will discuss], but I refer to ecstasy/MDMA/molly as “suburban drugs” because the class implications are almost overwhelming. Although suburban living and “suburbanites” are almost always thought to be white, drug use almost always shifts according to socioeconomic class, despite its considerable intersections with race. Crack cocaine/weed vs. MDMA/Molly is a conversation that does not exclude suburbanite Blacks or low-income Whites because these drugs are still available to them exclusively due to their class, but the aftereffects/consequences of such use is affected by race.)
Rap/hip-hop and drugs have always had an intersecting relationship, but the properties of such drugs and their relationship to the subject matter/ideas presented in hip-hop/rap have too experienced longevity and importance. Weed and crack cocaine have always had much in common: namely, their accessibility cheapness and how easy it was to curate them—all of which have played heavily into their introductions to the Black community and hip-hop/rap genres. The idea here is that these drugs were either easy to get (weed) or easy to make (crack), and that one did not have to go out of their way in order to get an easy high or a good hit. Over time, both crack and weed have had their place in the hip-hop/rap community as prominent subject matter and centers of discussion on their influence on the Black community.
On the other side of spectrum lies cocaine, crack’s more expensive and better processed counterpart, ecstasy (more/better processed) and MDMA (more processed)—all of which have been denied access to low income communities particularly because of their high cost and usage. All three are and have been known as “party drugs,” believed to be used for recreational use, despite their addictive properties. All three have also been known to make their way through the party circuits of middle-to-upper class users, who are more likely to find a drug of such caliber at an uptown party than they would weed or crack cocaine.
Crack cocaine itself is a primo example of how class intersects with drugs use: born of the economic need for a “cheaper” cocaine knockoff, crack contained roughly 75% cocaine upon its genesis and provided a shorter high for a cheaper price. It provided roughly the same effects—including addiction—but tended to generate more profit because almost anyone could get their hands on it. While cocaine remained as the centerpiece for surburban drug use in the 70s and 80s, crack was introduced to low-income neighborhoods in Los Angeles and New York and the late 70s, and ushered in an epidemic in the 80s.
Since then, the conversation on drugs and race has been highly divisive. For me personally, I had a good sense of what drugs to avoid, despite—due to anti-drug/awareness programs in elementary/middle school—having been introduced to all of them. Dependent on my neighborhood, I was warned to steer from weed and crack; I’d never heard of cocaine usage in my area until late middle school. My neighborhood was almost always composed of Black/Hispanic families; the first time I’d been ushered into a conversation about cocaine, it had been in the company of almost always white kids. (The first conversation I’d ever had about ecstasy was with, again, a close white friend.)
The idea was that certain drugs were claimed by certain races, simply due to the high rate of usage by those races: crack/weed were “Black people drugs” and cocaine/ecstasy/MDMA (or any latest drug craze with a high tab) was a “white people drug.” In correlation, the relationship between drug culture and music throughout the decades reflected/encouraged these ideas: Dr. Dre names an album The Chronic after the rise of a potent strain of weed, and along with others taps into hip-hop/rap’s relationship with the drug; Guns N’ Roses that same decade [along with many popular rock acts before and after] write songs about cocaine and another popular “white people drug,” heroin.)
Molly’s appearance in 2012 as the “big drug crossover” is resultant of many things: the new-and-improved drug culture that promotes drug use recreationally (as long as that recreation is constant!), bigger and better parties/interactions where groups of all kinds co-exist, and the ever constant appeal and adaptation of hip-hop/rap music to white suburban youth. (I’ve learned quickly: attending a rap show is an experience in itself; one can find themselves exposed to weed, MDMA and ecstasy in less than thirty minutes.) It is also reminiscent of the ever changing socioeconomic mobility rappers receive not just as artists, but as celebrities who are capable of coming across Molly more frequently and in a larger capacity than the average suburbanite or person of a low-income background.
What, then, does rapping about Molly have an effect on? I’m curious to see what will happen to the ideas the rap community has about drugs. I had a discussion a few weeks ago about the low cost, almost resourceful use of drugs the rap and the Black community portrayed, and was (and still am!) curious on how Molly, a straight-laced pill, will change that. Hip-hop/rap’s drugs of the now and the past have somehow always managed to operate on a low cost, high need basis; with some even creating their own mixture out of cheap, easy-to-find materials (see: purple drank/lean.) I commented then that this resourcefulness—as a direct response to the being economically excluded from participating in the “higher end” of drug culture—may be phased out with the introduction of Molly, cocaine and the like; why make it if you can buy it?
Now I’m not so sure. While drugs like lean and weed attest to the shaky relationships low-income Black youth/adults have with drugs, rappers’ continued use and reference to these drugs have a significant influence on the way these drugs are perceived. While weed over the year has gained somewhat of a following, lean has failed to garner as much of a movement. It’s possible that because lean is more esoteric (originating from Houston and in Houstonian rap), it is a lot more elusive and not as culturally accessible. It is, however, gaining a wider audience as the years pass by; due to an ever growing number of rings, lean has managed to break out into other parts of the country and is now more expensive in Houston than in Los Angeles.
I’m curious about the social mobility of drugs now; not just Molly, but weed and lean and other drugs that will undergo something as influential and nuanced as gentrification. The cult status of the drugs once created and/or popularized by Black Americans have definitely provided a change in who gets to use them, and Molly is looking like it will inherit the same fate.
