Do we really understand drill?

Beyond Today

BBC

News

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2020

⏱️ 24 minutes

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Summary

Drill music has a reputation for inciting violence and crime. The Metropolitan Police believes the genre is linked to the rise of stabbings and murders across London, and the Met chief Cressida Dick has said social media platforms should be more vigilant of drill content being uploaded online. But many argue that drill is not only a form of expression, but it’s also the reality for many young black men who live in urban areas across the country. With attempts being made to ban the genre, what does this mean for those who socially and financially rely on it? The BBC’s Oliver Newlan explores how an attack on one of the country's biggest drill artists led to a number of deaths in north London, while Professor Forrest Stuart at Stanford University explains why we need to understand drill in order to understand the perspective of young black and brown men living in urban poverty. Presenter: Matthew Price Producer: Seren Jones Mixed by Emma Crowe Editor: Philly Beaumont

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:05.0	Just before we get started, this is going to be our last episode for a while.
0:11.0	I'll explain more at the end, but we thought that since you've probably got about
0:16.1	as much coronavirus information as you can handle we'll give you something a little bit different today. But please, if you're not into this subject, do us a favour. Can you hit forward, get
0:26.7	to the end and just have a listen to the payoff? Thanks.
0:30.0	Hello, I'm Matthew Price. This is Beyond Today from BBC Radio 4, where we ask one big question about
0:39.3	one big story. Today, do we really understand drill? Because there are two different ways of thinking about drill music.
0:59.0	The artist, they're going to speak about their reality.
1:02.0	That's their reality, you like, what can you do? That about the reality. That's the reality is like what can we do? That's the reality.
1:04.8	Actually I grew up on a council estate because that was a reality. We didn't grow up over here.
1:10.0	Like if I grew up over here then we would talk about nice buildings and the green grass.
1:17.6	With violent lyrics, references to crime and images of gang culture, drill music and its videos have been criticized for glamorizing
1:25.3	knife and gun crime.
1:28.0	I guess that's the main perception.
1:29.9	Drills this genre that incites violence. It's something the Met Police believes is linked
1:35.2	to the rise of stabbings and murders, especially among young black men.
1:40.3	For us, if it's against the law, it's against the law and it ought to be taken down.
1:45.0	The head of the Met police, Cressida Dick, says that social media needs to stop a lot of drill content being uploaded.
1:51.0	And if it is inciting in some way or glamorizing violence, then we think they have a
1:55.6	social responsibility to work with us to take those videos down.
2:01.4	But drill can also lift you out of poverty. It can make you rich. It can make you known, appreciated and loved.
2:09.0	One of the people we're going to talk to today has spent two years inside the drill community in the city where it started,
	...

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