Before any of this was about brands, before the music got packaged by record labels and the weed got logos, there was just the block. A speaker on a milk crate, a few heads from around the way, somebody’s cousin who could really spit and weed in the air.
No flyer. No announcements. If you knew, you knew when it was happening.
The cipher wasn’t planned. It just happened when folks showed up. A beat, a verse, a drag off whatever was rolled up. Weed wasn’t the centerpiece but for sure was a background character. It made the music hit different. Softer, maybe deeper. Like the high opened a second channel in the room.
No One Called It Culture. It Just Was.
Nobody used words like “cannabis community” or “consumption.” It was just part of being outside. Part of surviving boredom, stress, life on the street, school, cops, bills, whatever. You smoked maybe because it took the edge off and then you put that feeling into the music or your graffiti or just into the night.
There was no top-shelf flower or terpene conversation. You needed a little peace. Some space to think – or not think. The weed was enough.
Weed Taught Rap How to Breathe
Not everything came out of weed, but a lot flowed through it. You can hear it in the way some artists stretched and bounced bars. Maybe it was in the word play or how the beat didn’t always have to hit hard – it could just be a vibe that sits right with you.
Even now, that DNA’s still in rap music. The smoky visual transitions. Mad loose delivery. The sense that not every moment needs to be urgent. Some of it can just a vibe.
Not Nostalgia. Just Facts.
Yeah, things change. And maybe that’s not all bad. Weed’s legal now to an extent – at least in some places. Rappers got their own strains. Dispensaries bump trap playlists like it’s the day party to be at. But what made it matter wasn’t that it was weed. It was who it brought together. How it gave people room to breathe, be creative, speak from the heart, say something real.
Nowadays the culture is a little more polished. You don’t always feel the tension release like you used to in a cipher or a basement freestyle. Feels like there’s more money and a little less soul.
Let’s Not Act Like the Smoke Wasn’t Holding Us Together
This isn’t a “remember when” piece.
It’s a reminder. Because people talk about what hip-hop gave weed but never enough about what weed gave the folks who actively participated in the culture and built hip-hop.
A break. A moment of clarity. A way to process what the day did to you, then flip it into a bar.
And if you were lucky, somebody next to you heard it, nodded, passed the blunt, and said, “Go ahead homie.”
“Where’s the Smoke”
A guest series by Dee Sidhu for Fat Nugs Magazine.
Unfiltered thoughts from inside the culture – not just around it.
