Hip hop’s first anti-drug hit was released on Sugar Hill Records in 1983. “White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It)” by emcee Melle Mel, one of Grandmaster Flash’s Furious Five, presented a cautionary tale about the dangers of cocaine, including freebase. “A million magic crystals painted pure and white / A multi-million dollars almost overnight,” Melle Mel rhymes. “Twice as sweet as sugar, twice as bitter as salt / And if you get hooked, baby, it’s nobody else’s fault / so don’t do it!”
