Is Pop Going to Pot Again? Rappers Refire a Chronic Debate

Rap, which has been under siege for its violent imagery and sometimes lurid sexual content, may now be headed toward another showdown. The target this time is an old favorite in popular music: pot.

With increasing visibility, rappers have released songs celebrating marijuana-use, or decorated their album covers with pot iconography. Examples:

* Dr. Dre’s album “The Chronic”--which is slang for a potent strain of marijuana--bears the legend “In Bud We Trust” on a cover that simulates the package art of Zig-Zag cigarette papers. The disc itself sports a picture of a marijuana leaf.

* Ice Cube’s “The Predator” album has a picture of the rapper smoking a pipe in the shape of a skull.

* Cypress Hill has used props in concerts encouraging pot smoking, including a giant joint, and the group was featured on the cover of High Times, a national marijuana-oriented magazine.

* House of Pain frontman Danny Boy has his own line of clothing, Weed Wear, which has a pot leaf insignia.

This is just the latest wrinkle in a pop-pot connection that dates back to early blues and jazz recordings, and was boosted through the ‘60s and early ‘70s by a multitude of rockers, from the Beatles on down.

In rock today, the Black Crowes are one of several groups that have been prominent in support of pot legalization. The Georgia band performed before 60,000 people last summer at the third annual Great Atlanta Pot Festival. Singer Chris Robinson also often performs in trousers with pot leaf designs.

And reggae performers continue to speak of marijuana in terms of a religious sacrament.

But it’s the rap-pot connection that is likely to cause the most uproar. The combination is believed to be all the more inflammable because major record labels--which have to answer to stockholder-sensitive conglomerates--appear to be trying to distance themselves from potential controversies in rap.

And many of the pro-pot rap acts still call major labels home. Dre and House of Pain (as well as the Black Crowes) record for Time Warner labels, while Cypress Hill is on Columbia Records, part of the Sony family.

But instead of meeting resistance from the companies, David Lienheardt, manager of both Cypress Hill and House of Pain, says that the labels have used it to their advantage.

“With Cypress Hill, Columbia really used the pot angle as a marketing point,” Lienheardt says.

Sony officials had no comment, but other record executives downplayed the idea of pot developing into a national, “Cop Killer”-like issue in the record business.

“Is there anything wrong with wanting marijuana legalized?” says Jimmy Iovine, co-head of Interscope Records, home of Dr. Dre, whose debut album is currently in the national Top 10.

“Is Dre’s album any different than Cheech and Chong (the ‘70s comedy team that made a series of albums and movies built on pro-pot themes) or the Beatles? What about the Grateful Dead? This is singing about lifestyle. People do smoke pot. It’s part of our culture.”

Danny Goldberg, vice president of Atlantic Records, the Time Warner division that includes Interscope, says, “I wouldn’t put this at the top of the list of social problems.”

But some do.

“It’s irresponsible for any company to promote anything illegal,” says John Marcello, special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Los Angeles bureau. “There’s a tendency for kids to try something their heroes like. We fight so hard to promote the anti-drug message and all that can be neutralized when a popular artist promotes his drug.”

Cypress Hill’s B-Real protests, “We never say, ‘Go pick up a joint and smoke it.’ We say, ‘This is what we do.’ We’re promoting the use of hemp in all forms--environmental uses, medicinal uses and clothing uses. We let you know the other side of the story.”