Science & Health
More Than A Third Of Rap And Hip Hop Music Videos Feature Marijuana, Government-Funded Study Shows
More than a third of popular U.S. hip hop and rap music videos referenced marijuana in 2024, according to a new government-supported study. Artists like Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre have helped drive that trend by promoting a “chilled” lifestyle, the researchers said.
According to the analysis—which was funded by the Ministry of Justice and Health in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein—37 percent of U.S. hip hop and rap videos in from the 2024 YouTube top 100 charts featured cannabis references, while an additional 4 percent talk about both marijuana and nicotine.
That adds up to 41 percent of top videos in the genre embracing marijuana, contributing to the cultural normalization of the plant through art.
While 41 percent of hip hop and rap music videos talked about cannabis, the study from researchers at the German Institute for Therapy and Health Research found that only 2 percent songs in other genres originating U.S. mention marijuana.
“Cannabis has been firmly anchored in the US hip-hop scene since the 1990s and has been particularly influenced by artists from the American west coast,” the study, published in the journal Substance Use & Misuse, says. “Rappers such as Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre and The Game in particular are inextricably associated with cannabis and convey a ‘chilled’ lifestyle.”
“Historically, cannabis has been embedded in American hip-hop culture through the Afro-Caribbean and African-American subculture and is favored by widespread legalization,” they said.
The study also looked at depictions of cannabis and nicotine in German music videos, finding that the U.S. trends were reversed there—with nicotine being more prevalent than marijuana in videos.
Hip hop and rap has helped inform culture and policy over the years, and it will come as no surprise that Snoop Dogg’s influence in the U.S. continues to play a role in the movement.
Beyond his hit songs like “Gin and Juice” that have become fixtures of cannabis music culture, Snoop has also been expanding his own cannabis enterprise over recent years. Last June, for example, the artist brought another direct-to-consumer hemp lifestyle platform to market under his Death Row Records label.
Snoop acquired the music label Death Row Records in 2022, and the cannabis icon has been leveraging that legacy platform to create an intersection between the culture and the plant.
In 2024, he also expanded his Smoke Weed Every Day (S.W.E.D.) brand with a separate direct-to-consumer retail platform selling hemp-derived cannabinoid products, smoking supplies and other merchandise.
That platform further acts as a directory for S.W.E.D.’s physical retail marijuana locations, including a Los Angeles dispensary and a coffeeshop in Amsterdam.
Late night host Jimmy Kimmel recognized Snoop’s cannabis legacy in 2023 when he declared the artist’s birthday, October 20, the “new high holiday” of DoggFather’s Day.
While he might be best known as a prolific consumer, Snoop has also advocated for reform, which includes calling for a policy change at the NBA so that players could freely use cannabis off the court.
He said last year that he supported the reform based on the “medical side of it, the health benefits and how it could actually help ease the opioids and all the pills that they’ve been given and the injections.”
Snoop has long been pushing athletics organizations to adopt lenient marijuana policies, often emphasizing that point that cannabis could serve as a less addictive and dangerous alternative to prescription opioids.
Meanwhile, underscoring an anecdotal observation common among cannabis consumers, a group of researchers in Canada released a study in 2024 indicating that marijuana can make music more enjoyable, concluding that “the impact of cannabis on the auditory experience may be overall enhanced” compared to sober listening.
A separate study published in 2021 explored the intersection of music and psilocybin-assisted therapy and undermined conventional wisdom that classical music is somehow more effective in that setting.
Image element courtesy of TechCrunch.
