Percocet Soundscapes

sound
2018

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This project was started after I had ligament repair surgery from a boxing injury, and was prescribed Percocet. While on the medication, I began to think about the various ways that opioids are represented in popular culture, and how these vary within different subcultures and demographics. To compose these soundscapes, I sampled from radio broadcasts and documentaries, field recordings from my training, and southern rap music. I used editing techniques that mimic the Chopped and Screwed genre, a subgenre of southern hip-hop that originated in Houston in the 1990's and as heavily influenced by "lean", the term for promethazine /codeine cough syrup mixed with soda. The genre's creator, DJ Screw, died of an opioid overdose in 2000 at the age of 29.

 

The tracks are distributed through Soundcloud, the platform that has helped to popularize the drug-infused underground "post-emo" sad rap genre, whose most notable artists include Lil Peep (who died this past November of a Fentanyl overdose), Lil Uzi Vert, and Yung Lean.