Earlier this year, the Metropolitan Police secured two suspended nine-month prison sentences for 21-year-old drill rappers Skengdo and AM, after they breached a gang injunction banning them from performing a song.
Criminal Behaviour Orders and suspended prison sentences have been used by the Metropolitan Police to clamp down on the glamorisation of violence—but to what effect? Photograph: Facebook/@6ix7Official
Drill music has been strongly associated with gang violence, particularly in South London, and the Met have consequently sought to criminalise lyrics, videos, and performances which might incite violence.
Even so, criticisms of the Met’s approach have been voiced by drill musicians, social workers, and media commentators. Some have questioned the causal link between drill music and violence, arguing instead that rappers are merely reflecting their experiences, whilst others have queried the freedom of speech implications of certain policies. Still more doubt whether criminalisation will mitigate violence. The conviction secured in this case brings these questions to the fore.
Drill music is a type of rap which originated in the South Side of Chicago in the early 2010s, and has since been popularised and remoulded in Britain, particularly in South London. It has been characterised as nihilistic and provocative.
The drill music scene is populated almost exclusively by young black men from acutely disadvantaged areas. In embracing fringe American rap traditions and departing from what might be termed ‘pop rap’, these artists have deliberately set themselves apart from mainstream cultural movements, from which they feel excluded and in which they feel unrepresented.
It is impossible to look past the glamorisation of violence, the obsession with material wealth, and the objectification of women that underpins this culture. In some ways, of course, this is nothing new; distorted ideals of masculinity, femininity, prosperity, and success can be seen across all popular media.
What is particularly concerning about drill music, however, is its intimate connection with gang violence. Lyrics have been admitted as evidence in court cases related to knife crime, with some songs found to have directly anticipated attacks, such as the stabbing of 15-year-old Jermaine Goupall last year.
These convictions must be considered as part of a broader Met strategy to tackle gang violence where it is endorsed or enabled (or seen to be endorsed or enabled) by drill music. These orders are not an isolated situation. Instead they are an increasingly popular and sensationalised tool in an effort to diminish this music.
In June 2018, for example, West London drill music group 1011 was banned from mentioning deaths, attacks, and rival postcodes within their songs. They were also required to inform the police prior to releasing new music videos or performing at venues.
Police and the government have also lobbied sites such as YouTube to remove allegedly inflammatory and provocative content, with some success.
The Met maintains that this policy does not amount to censorship, but instead focuses on the incitement of violence. This is a rather ambiguous point. It is extremely difficult to distinguish between that which might constitute incitement and that which merely glamorises or describes an already violent reality.
This court’s decision — probably the first ever in the UK to impose a prison sentence (albeit a suspended one) for the performance of a song—will fuel concerns that the strategy introduced by the Met amounts to little more than state censorship.
Important though questions of free speech are, we must also ask whether the policy being pursued by the Met is a sound one. Is it effective?
A social worker from Battersea interviewed by BBC Newsnight explained: “on the one hand, we’re saying: ‘do something constructive with your life and try to make a difference for yourself.’ But for the young people who are attempting to do that, you’re immediately saying to them, ‘no, you come along with too much trouble, and we don’t even want to investigate the realities behind that.’”
For many, drill music represents an opportunity to express the realities of their lives on their own terms whilst also providing a means of escape from these realities. It gives a voice to a group of young men who struggle to feel heard or understood.
The impulse to criminalise drill comes from an understandable fear of violence, and a desire to prevent it. In moving towards the criminalisation of an artform, the Met risks further disempowering an already ostracised community, and this may serve to perpetuate cycles of violence associated with disempowerment and impoverishment.