Ball And Parlay or Leaning Back In The Day.

Gone are the days, way back in January, when I had the time to dissect the most minute social phenomenon, break down it's ancestry, and analyze it's socio-economical and artistic impact. I'm not with that, player. I now aim to update the page regularly, chocking it full of information pertinent to the art, nay the science, of designer (or thrift) thuggery. This time the entries will be equally awesome, but more concise. Because it's been so long since my last (and only) post, I feel the need to add a personal dimension to this, the sophomore Designer Thug-ism. Let's begin...

It's kind of a dated topic, but I would like to direct the focus of this forum to what is known in Texas as "lean", or Codeine cough syrup, and the thuggish/ruggish subculture surrounding it's use. The late DJ Screw, who ironically overdosed on the very serum that provided him a purposeful existence, popularized a unique style of slowed, re-edited rap music with a veritable shit-ton of lethargic "Chopped and Screwed" mixtapes, propelling himself to celebrity status in the south and abroad.


Granted, housewives have been abusing prescriptions for years, but H-Town rappers have glamorized “syzzurp” to the point where use of the drug itself has grown immensely. It is one of the south’s biggest narcotic problems, up their with methamphetamine, which has, for some reason, failed to gain any notable proponents within commercial rap. Your guess is as good as mine.

You would think that the FDA would somehow harness this popularity. Maybe Lil’ Flip is onto something. The demand for Sprite is undoubtedly indebted to his genius.

This is where I tie in a touching personal anecdote…

Long before the sounds of southern rap had permeated my fragile, middleclass Idahoan ears, I began to experiment with the various pharmaceuticals found within the medicine cabinets of my parents and the shelves of the local Rite-Aid drug store. During a high-school lunch break, I once downed an entire bottle of stolen Robitussin in hopes that it would make my upcoming biology class more tolerable. Not the case, homeslice. That shit had my eyes bugging out of my terrified skull. My face turned beet red, my scalp itched so bad that I scratched it until I drew blood, and my pupils dilated to twice their normal size. It was awesome, to say the least. I went to the bathroom, threw up and returned to class.

Later that year I did the same with some Codeine my friend was prescribed, and experienced similar, yet more sedentary results. Then an entire city of black people hundreds of miles away decided to steal my idea and make music about it.