Drill Music - Wikipedia

 

Love Sosa – Chief Keef (2012) Chief Keef's "Love Sosa" produced by Young Chop typifies the genre's style.[citation needed] Problems playing this file? See media help.

Lyrics

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Drill lyrics tend to be adversarial, aggressive, sometimes with a "combative energy".[3] The Guardian's Lucy Stehlik said, "Nihilistic drill reflects real life where its squeaky-clean hip-hop counterparts have failed."[54] Drill lyrics strongly contrast with the subject matter of earlier Chicago rappers[55] and contemporary mainstream hip hop which at the time of drill's emergence tended to glorify and celebrate a rise to wealth.[56]

Drill lyrics typically reflect crime on the streets, and tend to be gritty, violent, realistic, and nihilistic. The Philadelphia Inquirer describes drill lyrics as "celebrating violence" and that the songs "often explicitly describe shootings, mock victims, and taunt enemies".[4] According to DJ Drewski of Hot 97, "That's what started the whole New York drill [scene] was if I beef with you, or if I got a problem with you, I'm gonna say it on this record".[57] In drill lyrics, the term "opp" or "opps" (an abbreviation of the word "opposition") is frequently used to refer to enemy gang members and rivals.[58] Drill rappers use a grim, deadpan delivery,[59] often filtered through Auto-Tune, influenced by the "stoned, aimless warbling of Soulja Boy (one of the earliest non-local Keef collaborators) and Lil Wayne before him."[60] Atlanta-based rappers Gucci Mane and Waka Flocka Flame were important influences on the early drill rappers.[61][3]

Production

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The BBC states that "Whereas trap, the Atlanta-born rap style that dominated hip-hop for most of the 2000s, is often rhythmically rigid – with a snare falling on the third beat of each bar – drill moves to skippy, syncopated hi-hat patterns echoing the rapid fire of a machine gun".[3]

The Guardian called drill production style the "sonic cousin to skittish footwork, southern-fried hip-hop and the 808 trigger-finger of trap."[54] Young Chop is frequently identified by critics as the genre's most characteristic producer.[62][63][64] The sound of trap producer Lex Luger's music is a major influence on drill,[61][63][65] and Young Chop identified Shawty Redd, Drumma Boy, and Zaytoven as important precursors to drill.[64] Chicago drill is traditionally characterized by synth brass and bell melodic elements, use of the crash cymbal, and busy snare drum patterns.[66]

UK drill production, which is commonly utilized in Brooklyn drill, is characterized by a faster BPM, 808s "slides," and more syncopated drum rhythms—including the use of a sped-up tresillo rhythm in the hi hat patterns.[67]

Artistry

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Drillers tend to be young; many prominent musicians in the scene started getting attention while still in their teens.[68] One of the genre's most prominent musicians, Chief Keef, was 16 when he signed a multi-million dollar record contract with Interscope,[69] and in an extreme example, Lil Wayne co-signed the 13-year-old driller Lil Mouse.[70] Critics have noted drill rappers' lack of concern with metaphor or wordplay. Chief Keef said that his simplistic flow is a conscious stylistic choice:

"I know what I'm doing. I mastered it. And I don't even really use metaphors or punchlines. 'Cause I don't have to. But I could. ... I think that's doing too much. I'd rather just say what's going on right now. ... I don't really like metaphors or punchlines like that."[71]

Whet Moser of Chicago Magazine wrote that Keef's songs are "lyrically, rhythmically, and emotionally diminished, which is why they sound so airless and claustrophobic ... It's not even fatalistic, because that would imply a self-consciousness, a moral consideration, that isn't there in the lyrics. It just is, over and over again."[72] A profile on the scene in The New York Times examined the genre's aggression:

"With rare exception this music is unmediated and raw and without bright spots, focused on anger and violence. The instinct is to call this tough, unforgiving and concrete-hard music joyless, but in truth it's exuberant in its darkness. Most of its practitioners are young and coming into their creative own against a backdrop of outrageous violence in Chicago, particularly among young people—dozens of teenagers have been killed in Chicago this year—and often related to gangs. (There's a long history of overlap between Chicago's gangs and Chicago's rap.) That their music is a symphony of ill-tempered threats shouldn't be a surprise."[56]