Drill and the Rise of African Pop Music

An excursion into drill rap and a new wave of African popular music.

• Drill is a subgenre of trap music characterised by extraordinarily violent, threatening and nihilistic lyrics and ominous, bleak beats, a style that originated in Chicago in the early 2010s.
• There have been controversial attempts of police clampdowns on the UK’s drill music scene, aimed at disrupting a subculture that is said to glamourise gang violence and to even have inspired murder.
• Some UK drill artists have been banned from performing certain songs, with two rappers even being handed prison sentences for playing one of their songs at a concert in violation of a gang injunction.
• The criminalisation of drill crews has been criticised as a violation of personal liberty, but a growing number of politicians are speaking out in favour of banning drill content deemed too violent.
• Drill has inspired various African socially conscious subgenres, and has long entered the mainstream, enjoying huge popularity alongside other popular African music such as Nigerian Afrobeats.
• Sensational streaming figures of particularly West African music videos on YouTube and other platforms are hammering home that pop music from the continent is taking the world by storm.