Inside drill rap, the ultra-violent genre NYC’s mayor wants to shut downBy Michael Kaplan and Brad Hamilton
February 16, 2022
Drill rap songs are number one with a bullet.
And that’s terrifying to New York City Mayor Eric Adams, cops and victims of the genre’s sometimes trigger-happy rappers, who glorify killing in their songs and are quick to reach for guns to settle disputes.
Adams’ call to ban drill rap videos from social media following the murder of rapper Jayquan McKenley, an 18-year-old who performed under the name Chii Wvttz and was shot dead in an ambush last week outside a recording studio in Bed-Stuy, has put the music under intense scrutiny.
Drill rappers are surging in popularity partly due to their flashy videos, which depict young thugs who wield handguns, splash around money and smoke blunts — and have no problem blasting their rivals.
And it’s deadlier than just aggressive videos. As Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez told Fox News, “We’ve had a number of shootings in Brooklyn recently that are directly related to drill rap … [The rappers appear] on Facebook Live and Instagram Live, and they’re taunting their rivals in the rival gangs’ territory, saying, ‘We’re here. Come get us. If we see you, we’re going to shoot you.’”
According to Soren Baker, author of “The History of Gangster Rap,” drill takes the rap to a modern level of violence.
“Drill is basically gangster rap driven by social media beefs and social media tactics,” Baker said. “It’s real-time reactions to music and violence. Artists have gotten killed because they say, ‘I have beef with this person and this is where I am.’ The efficiency of releasing these songs” — with their real-time taunts — “leads to the violence happening.”
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Source:
https://nypost.com/2022/02/16/inside-drill-rap-the-genre-nycs-mayor-wants-to-shut-down/
