Words By Patrick M.

Me and Mary Jane have had a long up and down relationship over the years. We’ve fought and we’ve broke up, and so far, I’ve always come crawling back to her. If anything, AZ can sum up my (and many others’) relationship with the leafy green: Life is a bitch, you do die, and you never know when you’re going to go. So why not get lifted once a week/day/hour or so?

Many of Hip-Hop’s finest have their own relationships with Mary Jane, and you can be certain that Snoop, Redman, Method Man, and many others are celebrating today in their own special way. Those three artists in particular, have strong relationships with the plant, never failing to dedicate a song, or even an entire album with references to the quality of chronic they blaze, or the quantity they can blow through in a moment’s notice.

But their glorification of drugs is a double-edged sword. Sure they may have been able to make millions while blazing chronic all the time. But they are freaks of nature, that one percent whose body chemistry or sheer good luck keeps them from falling prey to MJ’s sedentary effects. Moreover, I look at Meth and Snoop as two MCs who, based on their performances on 36 Chambers and The Chronic, could have been the greatest of all time. Something held them back though, and kept them from putting together the catalog of focused albums and songs needed to be in that discussion. Did they lose that edge from too much Cali chronic, even as they became stars because of it? Who knows?

Pardon me for killing your buzz. Today is supposed to be a day of celebration so let me tell a story about why I love Mary Jane.

The year was 1998 and for some reason the local “urban” radio station in Boston kept playing a song called “Rosa Parks” by this group from Atlanta called Outkast. At the time, I was unaware that rap artists came from places other than New York or Los Angeles, and I could not for the life of me figure out the appeal of these country upstarts or their song.

One Friday night me and my boy decide that life is most certainly a bitch, and decide to drive around while taking AZ’s advice to heart. My mood is nicely altered and I’m chilling when what should come on the radio but “Rosa Parks.” My boy turns up the stereo.

And as it never has before the song clicks in my head.

“Uh-huh. Baby. Un-huh. Yea Yea.”

So whatever you’ve done to me Mary Jane, you gave me Outkast. And for that I thank you.

Happy 4/20.

Wit-E Beats Presents Street Bangers Vol. 30 (4/20 Edition) (Covers & Tracklisting included)