Censorship and Drill Rap

BY: ADRIAN PATTERSON

SEPTEMBER 30, 2022

Drill rap is a subgenre of hip hop known for its violent themes, focus on gang culture and the many flamboyant figures that create the music. It has recently been under fire by many mayors and law enforcement heads. Recently three drill rappers were removed from the Rolling Loud festival in Queens, NYC. Is this another musical witch hunt akin to the trials that made the parental advisory sticker mandatory? Or is this a serious threat to the well being of our society specifically in the urban United States?

The standout historical comparison is the movement by parents in the 80s that led to the creation and enforcement of the parental advisory sticker. The Parents Music Resource Center was a political movement started by four women with ties to Washington, most notably including eventual first lady Tipper Gore. This is a stand out group when talking about musical censorship. Their reasoning for the sticker is shockingly similar to the rhetoric that is surrounding drill rap at the moment with words such as “bad influence” and  “excessively violent”.

 I share a common opinion with the musicians that spoke out against this group. Frank Zappa, Dee Snider and John Denver had similar sentiments as I do. Dee Snider recounts; “So when he [John Denver] came out and spoke—and he spoke honestly about the way ‘Rocky Mountain High’ had been protested, and the movie Oh, God! had been protested, and he stood against censorship of any kind—we were cheering in the back.” These musicians didn’t think the sticker was the real issue. 

Dee Snider even made fun of the sticker saying that teens would know “what the cool records are!” But they were against any form of censorship and saw that this opened the door for further government control. “The concern was that it would be used to segregate records. To keep creative artists’ work from the general public. And true to form, stores wouldn’t rack certain records.” Dee Snider could have not said it better; society can be changed in strange ways by even minor amounts of censorship.

I wanted to get this historical context out of the way because of how reminiscent these drill rap events are to these hearings. The City of New York has been especially vocal about censorship in regards to drill rap. How will they go beyond the rating system? Can drill rap be an outlier or will these authoritative ideas spread to other art? How is the government supposed to handle the ideas of art in our society?

Let us outline the origins of drill rap and the sounds and themes of drill rap. Drill rap is largely derived sonically from the second wave of trap artists from the American south, the biggest of which is the producer Lex Luger. The sounds have been deemed drill because of their locked-in, pounding patterns. But where the problems start to arise even in the genre name is the fact that drill is also slang for shooting and killing. The drill subgenre is split into three scenes (listed in order of genesis);  Chicago, London, New York. Chicago drill was the scene that took the trap stylings of the south and repackaged them with an eerie ambiance of the gun violence filled streets of their hometown. Chicago also took the tempos and brightness of the Atlanta sound down to the floor with sparse beats and long pauses for ad libbing and tension building samples.

A number of prominent officials have come out against drill rap for its violent lyrics and catalytic effect on the gang violence in their communities. The most powerful and vocal among them is the mayor of New York, Eric Adams. When asked about his recent discussion with some of his city’s rappers he told reporters, “Violent people who are using drill rapping to post who they killed, and then antagonize the people who they are going to kill is what the problem is.” This statement was issued after his denouncal of drill rap for its alleged role in the killing of two rappers named Tahjay Dobson and Jayquan McKenley. 

The most recent event that occurred in the saga of drill rap being opposed in the city of New York. Is the removal of Sha Ek, Ron Suno and 22Gz from the Rolling Loud festival in Queens. The police have made this decision for the organizers who were told that they would not be able to include these performers on the ticket. The assistant chief of the NYPD told the organizers “the New York City Police Department believes if these individuals are allowed to perform, there will be a higher risk of violence.”

These events are a little startling to me. Any removal of music in such a way is destructive. The police and government should have no say in artistic endeavors of the public. The 1st Amendment protects this right. However I can see the argument in shutting down this subgenre of rap for its involvement in urban gang violence. The stance that I take and I believe the government should take is taking on the causes of gang violence not the music about gang violence. Drill rap is a responsive product of the widespread gang violence. Banning the product in this case will not stop the gun violence in the streets of these cities. Also this opens the door for more art to be banned under pretenses less valid than the reasonings behind banning drill.