We’ve lost a number of artists recently to drug-related deaths including Lil Peep, Mac Miller, Lexii Alijai, and reportedly Juice WRLD. The growing list has caused rap artists to take a long, hard look at their lyrical content as it pertains to drug use. Some have even pledged to stop rapping about popping pills and drinking lean, while others have vocalized that while they don’t promote drug use, they still intend to talk about it in their songs.

When Fredo Bang, who once regularly drank lean, sat down with Vlad TV, he shared his thoughts on his generation of artists’ addiction issues. “I feel like a lot of us need help out here,” Fredo said. “Therapy. A lot of us have disorders and stuff that we don’t know of. I feel like everybody should be evaluated at some point in they life. Early on. Especially if you go through something.”

“The Juice WLRD thing, it’s real sensitive because it was like, a bad way,” he added. “I feel like a lotta people… It’s the way… I took it as he took it to get rid of them because the police was there.” Vlad interjected to share the circumstances around Juice WRLD’s death once again. “It’s sad,” the rapper said. Even though Fredo Bang had never met the Chicago rapper, he still admitted that “Juice WRLD was one of my favorite artists.”

“That’s what makes it a hurtful situation because it wasn’t like, I think dude was supposed to have got clean,” Fredo said. “I don’t know. It wasn’t like he was just taking them and getting loaded. He did it to not go to jail.” Fredo Bang added that “[President] Trump doing the opioid stuff” has caused there to be “a lotta fake pills” to be manufactured and distributed on the streets.

He said that people support Trump wanting to tackle the opioid crisis, “but they don’t know that it’s causing the reaction of fake pills people worse than the actual pills.” Check out the rapper with Vlad TV below.

Loved ones of Lexii Alijai started off the new year grieving. It was on January 1 when news circulated that the 21-year-old artist was found dead at a hotel in Minnesota. Exact details surrounding her death are unknown, but according to E!, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner has determined a cause of death.

Lexii reportedly died of a mixture of fentanyl and ethanol. The medical examiner ruled the young rapper's rapper's death to be accidental. Lexii's name is added to a growing list of artists who have died of overdoses in recent years including Lil Peep, Mac Miller, and Juice WRLD. When news of Lexii's death was shared, many of her fellow artists took to social media to display their grief. 

Russ, Wale, and Bas were just a few people who spoke out about how stunned they were to hear of the rapper's passing, but Kehlani didn't hold back in sharing just how devastated she was. "Weakest saddest way to start a new year – i’m off this happy new year please please please please be safe out here – love on your people -please," Kehlani wrote in a tweet. "It’s hard to have so much faith in god and that everything happen for a reason cuz it’s sh*t i can’t imagine there ever being a reason for – why bro.” We send our condolences to her loved ones during this difficult time.

In their series Arts & Raps, All Def Music features a rap artist who answers questions from kids as they break out the crafts and spark conversation. On Wififuneral’s February 2018 episode, he was asked who he thinks is a “trash rapper.” Without much hesitation, the New York artist said “Russ,” and thus ignited a back-and-forth feud between the two.

Russ later sat down with Joe Budden for his Pull Up series and spoke about the beef. “[Wifisfuneral] is one of these rappers, I’ve never met,” he said. “I don’t know you and you’re talking sh*t. It’s kinda one of those things where like you’re joining in on, ‘Oh wait, we’re all making fun of Russ. Cool, here’s my joke too.’ You don’t realize there are consequences to that.”

In a recent chat with VladTV, Wifisfuneral was asked why he mentioned Russ’s name in the first place. According to the rapper, it all stemmed from Russ’s alleged insensitive remarks and behavior toward Lil Peep after the late rapper’s overdose. “I think he’s very misconstrued on what exactly my issue is with him,” Wifi began. “I really don’t got a problem with his music at all. I personally, from the bottom of my heart, I don’t really care for his music. I know he doesn’t care for mine, so we don’t lose on that end at all. Second of all, I never knew that somebody would feel so offended by my words. Never thought that I would have that much power to offend somebody.”

“Third of all, the reason why I actually said that was not because it was a trend and not because you know, people were at the time saying like, ‘Oh, f*ck Russ.‘ Imma drug addict. Straight up and down. We’re just gon’ address it like that,” Wifi said, before adding that Russ’s anti-drug Twitter rant following Peep’s death upset him. Russ also reportedly wore a shirt that said, “How much Xans and Lean do you have to do before you realize you’re a f*cking loser.” 

Wifi continued, “So you mean to tell me that people who have problems like me, people who have problems like Peep, people who have problems like, you know…we’re legit losers? So me expressing my pain because every form or way that I’ve tried to do it is just not working for me, I’m a loser for that? Alright, well f*ck you then.” Watch his full explanation below.

Prescription pill addiction isn’t a new wave globally, but it has been impacting the younger generation of hip hop artists in ways that may be unfamiliar to the genre. We’ve witnessed artists like Mac Miller, Lil Peep, and allegedly Juice WRLD lose their lives to overdoses, and while some of their fellow artists have pledged to quit many of their bad habits, others still struggle with addiction.

In a rare move, the ever-private Wifisfuneral finally sat down for an interview with VladTV. The 22-year-old Bronx native, real name Isaiah Rivera, battled addictions to cocaine, Adderall, and Xanax, and he shared in his chat with Vlad that he almost lost his life on multiple occasions. Rivera stated that cocaine and Adderall were the worst because “I was really mixing the two because I was like, ‘F*ck this, I don’t wanna be here.'”

During his second overdose, Rivera revealed that he had a stroke. “Whole left side of my body was like, done. Stiffed up. I couldn’t move” he said. “I was blessed that [I wasn’t paralyzed] but I definitely felt locked. Face stiff. This whole left side of my body was literally completely stiff. I couldn’t move it. I was freaking out so bad, I was wobbling. I could only move on my right leg.”

During this frightening episode, Rivera said his friend who was with him “got so paranoid that he damn-near broke my knee-cap because he tried to pop my knee back into place and cut the blood circulation and at least hold my sh*t until I went to the hospital.” While he’s lucky to be alive, Rivera said that he “still feels the effects” of the stroke because he has to “drag myself when I walk.”

As scary as that was,it wasn’t his last overdose. He shared the story of one that occurred during the Boy Who Cried Wolf Tour. That time, he took his ex-girlfriend’s codeine pills and ingested so many that his face went numb. The overdoses weren’t warning to him, at the time, that he should reevaluate his habits because all he could think about was how terrible he felt about his life. Watch his clip below.

Legends never die. We’ve had a rough few years in terms of accepting the fact that some of our favorite rappers are gone forever. Thankfully, we still have the musical catalogues containing to industry-shakers like Juice WRLD, XXXTentacion, Mac Miller, Nipsey Hussle and others. After news broke last week about Mac Miller’s upcoming posthumous album Circles, it was confirmed that Nipsey Hussle’s album Victory Lap was finally awarded platinum status. Those two revelations certainly had people thinking over the weekend and one artist envisioned a bunch of rap’s fallen soldiers in one room, playing cards and lighting up one of Heaven’s rooms with their joy. 

Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images

Tory Lanez shared the artwork on his social media profiles, pointing out that he’s not entirely sure of who created the picture but that it brought him to tons of emotional places. “Crazy…. S.I.P … don’t know who made this. But this is incredible,” wrote the Canadian singer. The artwork shows Fredo Santana, Nipsey Hussle, Lil Peep, Mac Miller, A$AP Yams, Juice WRLD and XXXTentacion gathered around a table with cards in their hands, weed on the surface, and half-drunk glasses of whiskey in front of X and Fredo. The picture truly is beautiful.

Remember some of the greatest forces to have impacted this generation of hip-hop below and think of what they could have accomplished had they not been taken away from us so early in their lives.