What they have in common is that they are all, by their own account, for now, living sober. And quite evidently they all strongly believe—whatever their varying reasons and circumstances and perspectives and challenges—that sobriety has made life better. Cee-Lo stopped smoking around the late 1990s and has remained sober ever since. Simply put, he had an anxiety attack and didn’t want to do it anymore.

Macklemore

“I had an experience with alcohol that made me paranoid because of it and I stayed away from it,” 50 told Piers Morgan. In an interview with G-Unit, Tony Yayo confirmed that 50 Cent abstains from drugs and alcohol. In an interview with Billboard, fans were generally overjoyed to hear Chief Sosa admit he “don’t sip the lean no more,” considering the sloppiness of his last two mixtapes. Eminem is now well-known not only as one of the most influential rappers of all time, but as a rapper who is continuing to overcome his struggle with addiction. At the peak of his addiction, the rapper reveals that he was taking 75 to 80 valium per night. Eminem’s drug-fueled adventures in his younger years provided inspiration for some of the most colorful and depraved rap songs ever recorded.

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• “I actually looked in the mirror and saw myself deteriorating,” Andre 3000 told “VIBE” in 2012.
• Em has vacillated between addiction and sobriety for years, and you can usually tell which songs were recorded sober and which he recorded stoned out of his mind.
• Back in 2020, during an interview with Converse for their Creative All Star Series, Tyler, The Creator shared that he’s never been interested in drinking, though he’s tried weed twice.

He has since helped his fellow rappers with their addictions. Since his passing, fellow rappers — many of whom were close to Peep in real life — seem to have a different outlook on drugs. By the time the new year began, a handful of notable rap stars have took to social media to denounce drug usage and reveal that they are striving to live healthier and drug-free. A few are also encouraging their fans and followers to do the same. And those are a few rappers who don’t smoke cannabis.

Sober Rappers Who Don’t Drink or Do Drugs

But as he clarified in a one-on-one interview with Complex in 2013, he was able to make a song about smoking weed because he stepped away from it in 2011. He was tired of being the “Stoner MC” and once he shedded that persona, rapping about it became easier. In other words, he still didn’t smoke, but because he rid himself of the smoker stereotype, he could rap about it more freely. A former drug dealer, 50 Cent is sufficiently knowledgeable about the adverse effects of rappers who don’t smoke or drink drug abuse.

His 2009 album, Relapse, was a direct result of a relapse following the death of his best friend, rapper Proof. After becoming sober, Eminem reemerged with Recovery, his incredibly successful seventh album chronicling his journey to sobriety. Macklemore has struggled with remaining sober his whole life. In a recent interview with MTV, the platinum-selling rapper revealed he developed a drinking problem at the age of thirteen. In his past, oxycontin and syrup have caused him near-death experiences.

I’ve been a fan of Outkast since they dropped their first album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik in 1994. Even back then it was fairly obvious Andre 3000 was on some different ish’, and when ATLiens dropped it was confirmed–Andre 3000 was definitely on another level. It was also around this time that the Atlanta native stopped smoking weed, became a vegetarian and had a kid with Erykah Badu, although not necessarily in that order. These days Dre has stated that he replaced weed with fashion. And to be quite honest with you if I couldn’t smoke with the man thrift store shopping would be the next best thing.