Rapper Pimp C Killed By Some Cough Medicine

Before Heath Ledger and Jeremy Beadle there was Pimp C - the rapper who died mysteriously in December.

But now a coroner has officially declared that Pimp C's cause of death was down to drinking too much cough syrup. Honestly.

Incidentally, one of Pimp C's best-known songs was Sippin On Some Sizzurp, all about how nice it is to drink loads of cough medicine at one. It's an irony not seen since Steve Irwin recorded the Baton Rouge Jigg gangsta classic Fightin With Some Stizzrays.

On the basis that their lives are worth more than a hundred of ours, it's always sad when a celebrity dies - even if we didn't really know who they were when they were alive. And that's the case with Pimp C, who was found dead in his Hollywood hotel room on December 4.

Apparently Pimp C was influential in more ways than we could describe. Not only did Pimp C help lay the foundations for hip-hop's Dirty South movement, but he also had a number one album and one of the first rappers to classify themselves alphabetically by profession, along with Pimp A, Pimp B and Spot-Welder W. 

However, the death of Pimp C quickly became a mystery. A mystery that's now been solved thanks to a coroner's report. Turns out that it was the cough syrup that killed Pimp C. The Los Angeles Times reports:

Rap artist Pimp C… died accidentally at a Sunset Strip hotel because of the combination of a medical condition and cough syrup, the Los Angeles County coroner said Monday… The coroner's report said the death was "due to promethazine/codeine effects and other unestablished factors." But Butler had a history of sleep apnea, a condition that causes the sufferer to stop breathing for short periods during sleep. In tandem with that malady, the cough medication probably suppressed the artist's breathing long enough to bring on his death, Winter said.

As it happens, it seems like drinking cough syrup is quite the hobby in parts of America. Apparently you can mix it with soft drinks, call it 'Lean' and sell it for $200 on the streets. But maybe Pimp C didn't know that. Maybe Pimp C just had a tickly cough.

It's a possibility, but that theory becomes a little undone when you realise that Pimp C guested on the Three 6 Mafia song Sippin On Some Sizzurp, all about how drinking vast amounts of cough syrup is like a normal drug, but with the added benefit that you wake up the next morning free of catarrh.

So maybe Pimp C knew what he was doing when he drank the cough syrup before he died. Hopefully his death will put an end to this ridiculous drug craze for good, even if it means Lethal Bizzle trashing his plans to release the forthcoming single Monged Off My Chops On Tixylix.

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Cough syrup cited in rapper Pimp C's death - LA Times