Drug Abuse In Sonny's Blues

Sonny’s Blues is an excellent depiction of how artists often use drugs in order to enhance their musical genius. By ingesting a drug to alter their state of conscious, they allow the narcotic to create usually obscure connections in the brain to become prominent and overactive. The setting of the story takes place in Harlem, a neighborhood often associated with crime and drugs. However, it is also known to produce successful poets and musicians. The question is, could these factors be possibly related? Sonny, a boy described as bright but troubled, quickly finds himself in rehab for heroin after a police raid (Baldwin 566). After detoxing and being reunited with his brother he swears off hard drugs, but insists that he will make a life for
One example is the 27 Club, or a series of artists that have died at the age of 27 due to an overdosed on drugs. Members of this club includes: Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Brian Jones, Amy Winehouse, and many others. It is a tragedy that these artists passed on at such a young age, but their music has impacted a variety of generations throughout the ages. Another famous group of artists immersed in drugs was the Beatles. They admitted in several interviews that they were stoned while writing lyrics. However, they are a group that has withstood the turn off the century and continue to be loved by people who even my age. With this being said, Sonny hoped to achieve this level of artistry in Jazz, and even attempted to explain this ideology to his brother (Baldwin 581). In one instance, Sonny stated that heroin made him feel “warm and cool at the same time” and that the euphoria of it made him feel in control, which was necessary to play music with the level of soul that is required (Baldwin 581). This can be understood during the scene when Sonny is playing with Creole in the jazz club because his brother finally experiences what Sonny has been describing all