"They Weren't About To Do A Deal W/ A Drug Addict That Was Going To Kill Himself"

Midwest rap veteran Tech N9ne has opened up about his past struggle with drug addiction and revealed what finally gave him the motivation to get sober.

According to Tech, using marijuana led him to harder drugs such as Ecstasy before finally receiving a wake-up call.

"My kids man. I remember my young little girl Rainbow, she couldn't be more than three at the time...I don't f*cking know...she was looking at me and it felt like she knew that I was high man," Tech explained in an interview. "I was like, 'Man, I cannot die on this drug.' And my business was getting way more important and I had to be here. My partner Travis got us a lot of money and it would have just been a waste. I recall getting in the deal and somebody said they had to make sure they weren't about to do a deal with a drug addict that was going to kill himself. And a lot of my fans were like, 'Yeah, we're going to lose him like we lost Jim Morrison.' I was hearing sh*t like that. I wrote songs about it, and I got off of that sh*t, and I didn't turn back." (Complex)

This week, Public Enemy's Flavor Flav revealed his past battle with fighting addiction.

"I [was] a drug addict for 18 years; only six years clean. The worst mistake I ever made was experimenting with drugs. I was always more of a follower instead of a leader. Being around the hood, you're following, you always wanna have a big name for yourself and you don't wanna be no punk. Whatever my friends were doing I chose to do. It was the worst experiment that I could do in my life, but would I change it to this day? No. The reason why is because I got to learn about addiction. I got to live through all of that, so that way I could be able to teach about it and hopefully people learn how I made my mistakes and they [don't] make the same mistakes that I made." (XXL Mag)

Shady Records rapper Cashis recently came clean about his recent struggle with addiction.

"First time I met [Eminem], in the studio in Detroit, I had a vial of like 80 Valiums and I popped em all in like a day and a half. He was like "D*mn, dog you might wanna get some help. Let me know, I can help you out, discretely,' " the rapper explained. "I was like 'Nah man. Where I'm from, what would I look like?' I got off it my own, and later on, I found out -- like the rest of the world -- Em was getting off of it. During that time, I just quit talking to everybody dog. I didn't talk to no friends, family." (Baller Status)

Last summer, Grammy-winning rapper Eminem said his past drug addiction had a damaging effect on music making.

"I had to learn to write and rap again, and I had to do it sober and 100 percent clean. That didn't feel good at first...I mean it in the literal sense. I actually had to learn how to say my lyrics again -- how to phrase them, make them flow, how to use force so they sounded like I meant them. Rapping wasn't like riding a bike. It was [as much] physical as mental. I was relearning basic motor skills. I couldn't control my hand shakes. I'd get in the [recording] booth and tried to rap, and none of it was clever, none was witty and I wasn't saying it right...It was four or five months after I'd been clean when I started to get a glimmer of my writing skills back. I don't remember what song I was working on specifically, but I do remember getting feeling back in the music. I realized I wanted to do this again." (New York Post)