Best Stoner Songs and Albums: A Playlist Through Cannabis Music History

Updated October 2026

Short answer: the best stoner songs span almost a century, from Louis Armstrong's "Muggles" (1928) and Cab Calloway's "Reefer Man" (1932) to Peter Tosh's "Legalize It" (1976), Black Sabbath's "Sweet Leaf" (1971), Cypress Hill's "Hits from the Bong" (1993) and Afroman's "Because I Got High" (2000). Below are 28 songs and albums, era by era, plus how to build your own sesh playlist.

Weed and music have been hanging out longer than your parents have been alive. Jazz players in the 1920s and '30s had their own slang for it, reggae built a whole spiritual vocabulary around it, rock bands snuck it past radio censors, and hip hop put it on the album cover.

So we made a playlist that's also a history lesson. Titles only, no lyrics, because we're a grinder company, not a lyrics site (and we like not getting letters from lawyers). Song years are cross-checked against lists from High Times and Complex.

The jazz era: viper songs (1920s–1930s)

In the jazz age, a "viper" was a weed smoker, and "muggles," "reefer" and "tea" were all slang for the plant. Musicians wrote about it openly, decades before the rest of pop music caught up.

1. Louis Armstrong, "Muggles" (1928). An instrumental named after the slang word. Armstrong never hid his fondness for the stuff, and this is his calling card.
2. Cab Calloway, "Reefer Man" (1932). Big-band swing with a wink, from the same bandleader who gave us "Minnie the Moocher." Pure fun.
3. Stuff Smith, "If You're a Viper" (1937). The jazz violinist's tune became the unofficial viper anthem and got covered over and over.

The '60s and '70s rock years

Rock and folk musicians got sneakier with radio censors and louder with everyone else.

4. Bob Dylan, "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" (1966). A brass-band singalong that sounds like the whole studio was having a great day. Because it was.
5. Ray Charles, "Let's Go Get Stoned" (1966). Co-written by Ashford & Simpson, turned into a soul classic by Brother Ray.
6. Fraternity of Man, "Don't Bogart Me" (1969). The ultimate sharing-is-caring anthem, made famous by the Easy Rider soundtrack. Pair it with our best stoner movies list.
7. Black Sabbath, "Sweet Leaf" (1971). Opens with a cough and then the heaviest riff of its year. The original stoner-metal song.
8. Brewer & Shipley, "One Toke Over the Line" (1971). Gentle folk-rock that somehow got played on wholesome TV before anyone noticed what it was about.
9. New Riders of the Purple Sage, "Panama Red" (1973). Country rock named after a famous strain of the era.
10. Steve Miller Band, "The Joker" (1973). Laid-back, slide guitar, a song that sounds like a lazy afternoon.
11. Neil Young, "Roll Another Number (For the Road)" (1975). Loose and ragged in the best way, from one of his darkest, most loved records.

Reggae and funk: roots, rebellion and Rick James

In Jamaica the plant was tied to Rastafari faith, and reggae artists sang about it with a seriousness (and a groove) nobody else could match.

12. Peter Tosh, "Legalize It" (1976). The title track of his debut solo album. Less a song than a manifesto.
13. Bob Marley & the Wailers, Kaya (1978). The whole album, title track included, is mellow and warm. "Easy Skanking" opens it and sets the mood perfectly.
14. Rick James, "Mary Jane" (1978). Funk's slinkiest love song to the plant. Bass so thick you can lean on it.
15. Black Uhuru, "Sinsemilla" (1980). Dub-heavy roots reggae with a hypnotic rhythm section.
16. Rita Marley, "One Draw" (1981). A bouncy dancehall-era reggae hit from the I-Threes singer, and proof the Marley family had more than one star.
17. Musical Youth, "Pass the Dutchie" (1982). A kids' group made it a worldwide hit by cleaning up the lyrics of an older Mighty Diamonds song, "Pass the Kouchie." Pop history is weird.

Hip hop: the blunt era

By the early '90s hip hop had made weed central to its identity, from West Coast G-funk to East Coast boom bap.

18. Dr. Dre, The Chronic (1992). The album named after the plant. G-funk's blueprint and a front-to-back sesh record.
19. Redman, "How to Roll a Blunt" (1992). Exactly what it says on the label. Funky Redman at his best.
20. Cypress Hill, "Hits from the Bong" (1993). From Black Sunday, an album that's basically a weed-culture time capsule. Lazy, smoky, perfect.
21. OutKast, "Crumblin' Erb" (1994). From their debut, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik. Mellow Atlanta soul.
22. Luniz, "I Got 5 On It" (1995). The ultimate chip-in-for-the-bag song, and one of the most recognizable beats of the decade.
23. D'Angelo, "Brown Sugar" (1995). Neo-soul's opening statement, and yes, it's about what you think it's about.
24. Dr. Dre feat. Snoop Dogg, "The Next Episode" (1999). Instantly recognizable from the first note, and you already know how it ends.
25. Afroman, "Because I Got High" (2000). A list of everything that went wrong because of one decision, told with total honesty. A novelty song that became a standard.

The modern era

26. Wiz Khalifa, "Still Blazin'" (2010). Wiz built a whole brand around the lifestyle (more on that in our celebrity cannabis brands roundup).
27. D.R.A.M. feat. Lil Yachty, "Broccoli" (2016). Pure joy in song form, with the best green-vegetable euphemism in the game.
28. Jhené Aiko feat. Rae Sremmurd, "Sativa" (2017). Dreamy R&B named after the strain type, made for late nights.

Honorable mentions (because 28 wasn't enough)

Every list like this starts a fight, so here are the ones that almost made the cut. Throw them in your playlist and you'll get no complaints from us.

• Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen, "Seeds & Stems (Again)" (1971). A country weeper about scraping the bottom of the bag. Every smoker has lived it.
• Gang Starr, "Take Two and Pass" (1992). DJ Premier production, Guru's calm voice, and the most important rule of any rotation in the title.
• Cypress Hill, "I Wanna Get High" (1993). The other Black Sunday standout. That album really is the whole package.
• Snoop Dogg, "Gin & Juice" (1994). More of a party song than a weed song, but you can't do '90s West Coast without it.
• Tom Petty, "You Don't Know How It Feels" (1994). Harmonica, a shuffling groove and one line that famously got scrubbed for the clean version.
• Ty Dolla $ign feat. Wiz Khalifa, "Irie" (2013). Sunny, slow and made for a backyard sesh.
• Young Thug, "Stoner" (2014). The song that put Thug on the map, with a hook that sticks for days.
• Rihanna, "James Joint" (2016). A tiny interlude from Anti. Barely over a minute and still a favorite.

Why weed and music keep ending up together

A big part of it is just timing. Musicians played late, hung out late, and lived in scenes where smoking was part of the furniture. Jazz clubs in the 1930s, folk coffeehouses in the '60s, Kingston studios in the '70s, and LA and New York studios in the '90s all had their own smoke-filled back rooms.

The other part is how people describe the experience. Plenty of listeners say music feels richer or more absorbing after a session, so artists wrote songs for that audience. Some songs are celebrations, some are inside jokes, and a few (Peter Tosh, we're looking at you) are straight-up political statements. Together they're a pretty good map of how attitudes toward cannabis shifted over almost a hundred years.

Build your sesh playlist

A good playlist works like a good sesh. It starts easy, builds a little, then lets everyone drift. Here's our formula for a two-hour mix.

A few rules we stick to:

• Mix the eras. Going straight from Cab Calloway into Cypress Hill makes the whole room pay attention.
• Albums beat shuffle for late nights. Kaya, The Chronic or Black Sunday front to back. Nobody has to be the DJ.
• Volume follows the sesh. Louder for the first round, softer as people sink into the couch.
• Make it collaborative. A shared playlist where everyone adds three songs is always better than one person's taste.

The ritual: grind, roll, press play

Here's our pitch, and we think it's a fair one. Music sounds better when you're not fumbling. Grinding takes about ten seconds if your gear is right and about five frustrating minutes if it isn't.

Load pea-sized pieces around the teeth (not packed in the center), give it a few short twists back and forth, tap it, and you've got fluffy, even flower ready to roll. Our grind guide walks through it, and here's what most people get wrong.

Phoenician grinders are machined from aircraft-grade 6061-T6 anodized aluminum with diametrically cut, razor-sharp teeth that slice like scissors instead of mashing. The patented threadless quick lock opens and closes with a short twist (about a third of a turn), so you're not wrestling with threads while the first track plays. A removable stainless screen catches kief in the bottom chamber for later.

Then roll it, light it, and let the playlist carry the rest. For the full ritual treatment, read how a grinder turns a sesh into a ritual.

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FAQ

What is the most famous weed song of all time?

Peter Tosh's "Legalize It" (1976) tops a lot of lists, along with Bob Marley's "Kaya," Black Sabbath's "Sweet Leaf" and Rick James's "Mary Jane."

What was the first song about weed?

Nobody can say for sure, but jazz-era tracks like Louis Armstrong's "Muggles" (1928) and Cab Calloway's "Reefer Man" (1932) are among the earliest well-known recordings.

Why were stoners called vipers?

"Viper" was 1930s jazz slang for a cannabis smoker. Many people link it to the hissing sound of a long inhale.

What's the best stoner album to play front to back?

Dr. Dre's The Chronic, Cypress Hill's Black Sunday and Bob Marley's Kaya are hard to beat.

Grind once, roll it right, press play. The rest takes care of itself.

Keep reading

• The best stoner movies of all time, ranked
• How to roll the perfect joint
• Terpenes and how grinding affects them