Paul Wall admitted he regrets being the one who first introduced Juelz Santana to lean, also known as “purple drank.”
In a new interview with The Art of Dialogue, released Friday (September 5), the Houston rap veteran reflected on a past clip of Santana recalling how he first came across the drug.
“I was drinking it through … It got introduced to me through Houston guys — my man Paul Wall,” Santana said in the throwback footage.
Wall responded by admitting he feels guilty about that moment. “At the time, you know what I’m saying, we all drink, we’re all drinking. And you look at people that drank … they’re not crackheads,” he said.
“We’re not breaking in people’s houses, selling your mama TV, pawning it to buy drink,” he added. “Drink wasn’t even that expensive back then. You wouldn’t even do that to get … drink was cheap as hell back in those days.”
The Houston rapper went on to explain that most “long-term addicts” he saw were overweight, which played a role in their struggles with the substance. “So, it was not directly from the drink, but indirectly from the drink. And all of that was all something that’s manageable to some extent,” he said.
Wall recalled that after Juelz Santana’s first taste of lean, the next time they crossed paths, the Dipset rapper already had “a full-on bottle.” He admitted, “And it’s like, ‘Damn, that’s what’s up.’ You know, of course, I didn’t — you never know how it’s going to affect different people, how people are gonna immerse [themselves] in it.”
In his own TAOD interview back in January, Santana said he tried lean to get a feel for Houston’s culture. “It was sweet, it tasted like candy,” he said. “I didn’t even really know about the effects and all that. I gradually learned about all that as it was [happening] to me.”
He also admitted that once he started sipping with the likes of Lil Wayne, the habit deepened, and he eventually began to feel “physically dependent” on the drink.
