Curated playlist
American people convicted of drug offenses
- Billie HolidayBillie Holiday died with seventy cents in the bank. She earned $250,000 in the three years before her 1947 arrest.
- James BrownJames Brown pointed out band members' wrong notes with hand signals.
- Lil WayneLil Wayne left school in tenth grade after his mother found a gun in his bag.
- Paris HiltonParis Hilton became so inescapable in 2007 that parts of the American press tried to stop mentioning her. The Associated Press attempted to leave her out for the week of the 19th of February 2007. On the 26th of June 2007, host Mika…
- Snoop DoggSnoop Dogg bought Death Row Records, the label that launched his career, in February 2022. It took nearly three decades.
- Robert Downey Jr.Robert Downey Jr. was too big an insurance risk to hire until Mel Gibson paid his insurance bond.
- 50 Cent50 Cent was shot nine times in 2000, then blacklisted by the music industry. He built his comeback on mixtapes.
- Mike TysonBy age 13, Mike Tyson had been arrested 38 times. At 20 he became the youngest heavyweight champion ever.
- Larry HooverLarry Hoover Sr., born on the 30th of November 1950, is an American former gangster who founded the Gangster Disciples, a street gang from Chicago. On the 28th of May 2025, President Donald Trump commuted his federal prison sentences. Yet…
- Frank LucasFrank Lucas liked to ask one question when he explained how he moved heroin. "Who the hell is gonna look in a dead soldier's coffin?" He put it that way in an interview for a New York magazine article published in 2000. Lucas operated in…
- Kelsey GrammerKelsey Grammer was meant to play Frasier Crane for only six episodes. He kept the role for 20 years across two shows.
- DMXDMX was the first artist to open five straight studio albums at number one on the Billboard 200.
- Sammy GravanoSammy Gravano, known to the world as Sammy the Bull, once faced up to 20 years in prison and received a sentence that amounted to less than one year. In 1994 a federal judge gave him five years, but he had already served four. The judge…