Friday night at the Highline Ballroom, baby-faced rapper Lil Xan led a sold-out crowd of mostly teenage fans as they chanted the chorus to his hit anti-Xanax anthem “Betrayed.” Bathed onstage in purple light, Xan sprayed his water bottle on the crowd as they sang along to the song’s slow, bowel-soothing bass line: “Xans don’t make you/Xans gon’ take you/Xans gon fake you/And Xans gon betray you.” It was the last song of his set and when he returned for his encore, he performed it again, to the delight of his fans.
It’s a surprising turn for a rapper who named himself after the oft-abused anti-anxiety medication and has the word “Xanarchy” tattooed over his right eye. But Lil Xan is just one of many rappers of his generation who built a career touting recreational Xanax use, only to pledge abstinence from the drug and condemn its use. In January, Xan announced that he’s considering changing his stage name to Diego to further distance himself from the drug.
For decades, alcohol and marijuana were the clear drugs of choice among hip-hop artists. In the 90s, the drink of choice was elevated from malt liquor to cognac, and eventually champagne, but weed and drink still reigned supreme. In the past few years, however, an overwhelming number of young rappers have become proponents of the prescription anti-anxiety medication Xanx, celebrating the drug in their music and online videos.
Superstar Atlanta rapper Future has a song dedicated to introducing people (mostly women) to the drug. It’s called “Xanny Family” and contains the line, “keep a bag of xannies if you tryna join the family.” The references are so pervasive that a search for the word Xanax on lyrics.com yields over 100 results, most of which are rap songs released in the past year or two.
All of this came to be seen in a far darker light in November 2017, when beloved New York area rapper Lil Peep died of a drug overdose, widely attributed to a combination of Fentanyl and Xanax. His death prompted another prominent young rapper, XXXtentacion, to start an anti-Xanax movement on social media, using the hashtag #fuckxanax.
Soon after, the Philadelphia rapper Lil Uzi Vert — whose debut album reached the number 1 spot on the Billboard albums chart in September 2017 and has a song called “Canada Goose” that includes the line, “Came right in put my city on my back/But I’m still so relaxed on a Xanax” — announced that he had stopped taking Xanax. He shared his withdrawal symptoms online in a chilling stanzaic tweet: “Sober 2 Day I have been shaking/I have been cursing my love ones out and fighting/in the studio with no thoughts in my head/teeth biting down because I just wanna be angry at something/maybe I will just smoke weed tonight . . . ”
Lil Pump, the 17-year-old Miami based rapper, soon followed. His song “Gucci Gang,” which hit #3 on the Billboard hot 100 in December 2017, regularly promotes illicit use of Xanax (sample lyric: I got designer from head to my toe/I’m on the Xan, and my bitch on that coke), and he famously celebrated hitting one million Instagram followers by cutting into a Xanax pill-shaped cake. But on January 1 this year, he shocked his 8 million Instagram followers and the rap world at large when he announced what he would be giving up for the new year: Xanax.
Another prominent rapper, Russ, used the occasion of Peep’s death to criticize the glorification of Xanax use in a series of tweets, saying “Abusing Xanax and other pills drugs etc in private cuz your depressed . . . is one thing (still not good).” He went on to make the distinction between self-medicating and making online videos glorifying the use of harmful drugs. His criticism was that rappers’ promotion of Xanax would lead fans to experiment with the drug.
It’s not clear whether Russ’s claim that rappers’ glorification of the drug has contributed to the rise in use or if the rappers are simply a reflection of their generation. In the early 2000s, Busta Rhymes released a song called “Pass the Courvasier,” which caused a 30% spike in sales for the cognac brand. Almost overnight, Courvasier became the drink and status symbol of choice for young hip-hop fans. There’s no evidence to support that name-dropping Xanax has contributed to a similar rise in consumption of the drug, but there’s no question that millennials are abusing the anti-anxiety medication.
Many have noted the prevalence of anxiety among millennials, so it makes sense that the drug of choice for this generation would be an anti-anxiety medication. The National Survey on Drug Abuse and Health in 2013 showed that the rate of abuse of alprazolam for people 18-25 is double that of people 26 and over. A high profile rash of Xanax-related illness at some San Diego area schools in September drew attention to the rise of the drugs’ use among young people.
Kay (who only gave her full name), a 19-year-old from Long Island, was at the Lil Xan show Friday night and applauded the rapper’s anti-Xanax stance. “It’s an epidemic. Xanax is awful. On Long Island, I know so many of my friends who are addicts or are in recovery. It’s devastating.”
Kay’s friend Danielle (who also went only by her first name) nodded, explaining that her ex-boyfriend was addicted to Xanax. “I watched him use for so long and it was so hard our entire relationship, so I think it’s great that (Lil Xan) is trying to do this with his music.”
Hannah Madden, an 18-year-old Lil Xan fan from Westchester, was also at the show, but she had a different take on Xanax use. “I take Xanax because I have anxiety issues and I relate to (Lil Xan) because I feel like he had anxiety and that’s why he did it.”
Hannah’s friend Nicole Lazar, also 18, said that she’s not anti Xanax, but she appreciates what Lil Xan is doing. “His song Betrayed is all anti Xanax. I listen to that song and I vibe with it. It hits me in the feels because I know that you can’t rely on Xanax for the rest of your life and at some point, you just have to learn to cope with your problems.”
When pressed to explain why so many people in their generation are experiencing anxiety, Hannah and Nicole answered in unison. “Social media.”
Darius (not his real name), 19, lives in upper Manhattan and started taking Xanax recreationally when he was 17. Some older friends introduced him to the drug and he liked the high. Pretty quickly, though, he noticed the side effects. “At first you don’t feel anything,” he says. “But then you wake up and it’s the next day and you don’t remember anything. It’s confusing like you’re not really living in reality.”
Soon, he was taking multiple pills a day and his life started to fall apart. He dropped out of school. “It was February one month and then all of the sudden it was June.” He was eventually arrested for possession of a quantity of pills. The arrest prompted him to get serious about getting off Xanax, but then he had to contend with the side effects of withdrawal, which he says lasted for weeks because he would take a pill to ease the effects and have to start over. He couldn’t sleep for days at a time, had intense abdominal pain, and suffered from crippling paranoia, imagining that he was always being watched.
Darius has been off Xanax for several months now and his life has returned to normal. He went back to school and is working in construction. Asked whether he thinks rappers like Lil Pump and Uzi Vert were irresponsible by promoting Xanax, he says no. “I like Lil Uzi and them,” he says. “They’re talking about how they live. That’s why people listen. They could relate.”
