I'm Cobain but living
I'm "Don't Explain" Billie Holiday's, spirit, you feel it...
In your veins, heroin addict conceal it like the pain I revisit every time I do a line

from Jean Grae (Ft. Talib Kweli) – Live Up Lyrics on Rap Genius

Jean compares her musical abilities to those of two memorable icons, both of whom had noted problems with heroin. Note also Jean’s pun on “do a line”, in both the rhymesaying and drug senses of the term

Kurt Cobain, lead singer and songwriter of Nirvana, had a history with heroin that began in 1986 and continued up until his 1994 suicide

Billie Holiday was one of the most well-known jazz singers of all time, and the co-writer and best-known interpreter of the standard “Don’t Explain”. Holiday (b.1915) started using hard drugs in the early 1940’s, and a 1947 arrest for narcotics possession severely hindered her recording and performing career

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