Lil Wayne was one of the first artists from Louisiana to break into the mainstream, and, at the turn of the millennium, as the face of Cash Money Records, he quickly became a star.
As an emcee born and raised in the South, Lil Wayne (real name Dwayne Carter) was exposed to Southern hip-hop culture from an early age, and, unfortunately, this included the ‘Lean & Pills’ lifestyle. Many people are aware of the purple, euphoria-inducing cocktail. However, few know its history and consequences.
Lean, often referred to as “drank” or “juice”, has been a popular drug in the South for decades and was created in Houston. The concoction comprised codeine syrup mixed with a soft drink, and sweeteners is a staple in cities such as New Orleans, Houston and Atlanta. Unfortunately, due to its addictive ingredients, many rappers became reliant on Lean, and Lil Wayne was no exception.
During an appearance on the Drink Champs podcast, Louisiana legend Curren$y admitted that he once accidentally drank an entire bottle of Lean in Lil Wayne’s tour bus as he thought it was punch. Furthermore, he recalled that Carter used to store it by the six-pack.
Although it was a trivial story, Wayne’s addiction to the cocktail has had severe consequences for him in the past. In 2017, the performer suffered two seizures while on a private plane en route from Milwaukee to California. The plane was forced to land in Nebraska after the first episode, but merely minutes later, while taking off again, he had a second seizure.
The ‘6 foot 7 foot’ creator had drunk over a litre of Lean while at a club in Milauwkee. However, this wasn’t the first time Carter had suffered as a result of his lean consumption.
Codeine is a heavy, mind-altering narcotic that has the same effects as morphine when digested, and like all opioids, an overdose can lead to severe consequences, including death. In 2013, Lean almost killed Lil Wayne, and after various seizures, he was hospitalised.
Carter’s usage goes back as far as 2008, and in an interview with MYV News about his drug use, Wayne disclosed, “My friends, my mom. Everybody wants me to stop all this. It ain’t that easy — feels like death in your stomach when you stop doing that shit. You gotta learn how to stop, you gotta go through detox.”
He continued, “I feel like everything I do is successful and productive. It’s hard to sit and tell a nigga, ’stop.’ Fuck, how can we tell this nigga to stop when every fucking thing he do is successful? Let me do me. Everybody’s got their thing. Don’t compare me to no one who has passed and why they passed. I can walk out this bitchh right now and get hit by a bus. Don’t judge me. It’s me against the world — that’s how I feel.”
You can hear Lil Wayne talking about his Lean use in the video below.
