From Juice WRLD and Future to Lil Wayne, rappers have often experimented with prescription drugs to dangerous effect

On the cover of the US hip-hop artist J Cole’s most recent album, KOD, there are seven children wrapped in a heavy red cloak. One, her blue eyes painfully wide and her blonde hair hung neatly in a ponytail, is snorting a pile of cocaine off a plate.

Another, his expression bored and unfocussed, his basketball cap swung back to front, is puffing on a large spliff, while the kid to his left sips hungrily on a purple codeine cocktail, his eyes bloodshot. Behind him, a boy sticks out his pink tongue to reveal a white pill. Only three children are without drugs, but they are also without life, their skeletal faces grimacing blankly up towards the man enveloping them: Cole, the cloak hanging off his shoulders, his dreadlocks holding up a gold crown.

The title of the album – which broke Spotify’s opening day records with 4.2 million streams – was said by 34-year-old Cole to stand for three things: Kids On Drugs, King OverDosed and Kill Our Demons. “If I turn on the TV right now, it’s not going to be long before an advertisement pops up that says ‘are you feeling down? Have you been having lonely thoughts?’ And then they shove a pill in your face,” explained the rapper (who struggled with his own addictions) at the time. “The first response to any problem is to medicate.”