S. Samuel
With a new Def Jam recording contract to his name, Rick Ross protégé Gunplay recently discussed quitting a nasty cocaine habit and getting back to music-making.
According to Gunplay, his drug addiction had a visible impact on his music and physical appearance.
“It got pretty bad. It got bad. I can’t let it get to the point where I steal and sh*t. That’s just f*ckdafied. I might borrow it from you, but I never really did some sh*t like that. I would just be like, ‘Front me with an 8-ball and I’ll just pay you later.’ Some sh*t like that. I would never steal or do dumb-a** sh*t like that. But how bad did it get? Just my health, man. Looking myself in the mirror and my nose never being right. I could never breathe straight and I’m always blowing my nose. I’m already a skinny n*gga and that sh*t draws me up even skinnier by the time I wake up in the morning, I lost 10 pounds, like ‘What the f*ck just happened?’ Then, that day you gotta be at a video shoot. You got raccoon eyes and you 10 pounds lighter and you can’t even breathe and you’re blowing your nose like crazy and sweating because that sh*t makes you sweat. Come on, man, you look crazy. That was really one of my first steps in really taking this rap sh*t seriously…and that was quitting coke. That was 2008.” (XXL Mag)
He also opened up on how his mother dealt with his drug problems prior to getting clean.
“Right now? Aw man, trust me…it’s a whole other ballgame. I’m back to reality. I’m back to life. That sh*t gives you a f*cked-up attitude. It makes you snap on people you love. It’s not you, it’s the chemical imbalance that happens in your brain from snorting up that sh*t. You don’t even realize it. You think it’s the world against you. ‘Nah n*gga, your brain’s about to melt.’ My mama’s a nurse. She tells me about that sh*t. She knew I got high and she would just pray that I stopped. My mind is clear. I’m thinking way clearer and I’m not thinking on impulse much. I talk about it and acknowledge it. To this day, that’s my favorite drug; my drug of choice. Now, I just pop a Molly, f*ck it. That sh*t gets you high three, four hours and it stops. I’m back to reality.” (XXL Mag)
Last year, Gunplay talked about forcing himself to kick drug addiction.
“I do drugs, I don’t let drugs do me so I always had a handle on it,” Gunplay explained in an interview. “It was just when I was ready to stop messing with certain things, it got blown up. No drugs, no b*tches can f*ck my business up. Once it starts interfering with my business and I saw it taking a toll on my health, my attitude, my outlook on life, I just said ‘I’m tired of this sh*t’ and I just quit it altogether. Cold turkey. No rehab, no re — yeah I did relapse because I went to Colombia for Christ sakes, d*mn [Laughs]. I went over [there] and I relapsed. I said I was gonna relapse, I did it and I came back over here and I haven’t touched it since. And I don’t plan on touching it.” (VIBE)
In 2010, G.O.O.D. Music’s Kid Cudi revealed his past reliance on cocaine.
“I started doing cocaine to get through interviews, ’cause people wanted to know a lot about my personal life and I wasn’t prepared for a ’60 Minutes’ interview every time. Doing bumps I was able to get through the day, but then I would smoke weed to calm me down–it was the only way I could get through the day without people noticing I was doing it… never thought it was a problem, but I was definitely high-fiving death a couple of times. It took a lot for me to talk about sh*t like this on the album. I don’t feel like I need to explain myself to anyone besides the fans. My fans don’t believe sh*t until they hear me say it. And those are true Kid Cudi fans. I want them to know the story.” (Complex)
Check out a recent Gunplay interview below:
