Melle Mel's 1983 anti-drug song "White Lines (Don't Do It)" has been remixed by coke rap king Pusha T for the ridiculous new film, Cocaine Bear. Clocking in at just over a minute, "White Lines (Cocaine Bear Remix)" finds Pusha T rapping the plot to the movie with, "You heard the pilot lost the load/We call that dumb and dumber” and “The bear crawls up and under/Cocaine overload/The only fuel to his hunger."
Directed by actress Elizabeth Banks, Cocaine Bear was released in theaters nationwide on Friday (February 24). The film is loosely based on a true story in which a bear was found dead after attempting to eat 75 pounds of cocaine lost in the Kentucky woods. The duffel bag containing the coke appeared to be tied to a drug smuggler named Andrew Carter Thornton, whose body had been discovered in a Knoxville driveway a few months earlier. He was wearing a parachute and carrying 77 pounds of cocaine.
The film stars Keri Russell, Ice Cube's son O’Shea Jackson Jr., Christian Convery, Alden Ehrenreich, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Isiah Whitlock Jr. and Ray Liotta in one of his final roles.
Melle Mel's version was originally released as a 12" by Sugar Hill Records. The song peaked at No. 47 on the Billboard Hot Black Singles chart in 1983 and No. 7 on the UK Singles Chart in July 1984, where it spent 17 consecutive weeks in the Top 40. It was the 13th best-selling single of 1984 in the UK, selling more than several No.1 hits that year.
Co-written by Melle Mel and Sylvia Robinson, it was initially intended to be an ironic celebration of a cocaine-fueled lifestyle but was abridged with the "don't do it" line as a concession to commercial requests. It remains one of Melle Mel's signature songs.
Check out the remix below.
