The origins of Drill music in Chicago and its impact throughout communities worldwide
By: Justin Darden
As one passes through the city of potholes, seeing bungalow type houses, and currency exchanges is common, along with bus stops on almost every corner, unattended adolescents braving the chilly conditions. Chicago, Illinois, or Chi-Town, one of the largest city in the United States, known for their deep dish pizza and skyscrapers, but is among the most violent cities in the country.
While Chicago has produced notable talent in sports, it is also a powerhouse in the music industry, the African American Culture Is deep, caused by The Great Migration sending Blacks from the Rural South up North.
In the Southside of Chicago, an area full of hardworking people with a rich history covers the other part of the town, a town full of violence and low income neighborhoods. This side of Chicago is known for its high crime rate where the possibility of becoming a victim of any crime is a 1 in 13 chance.
In 2010, Waka Flocka Flame released his Album called Flockaveli, produced by Lex Luger. Luger became known for unusual types of trap beats that were darker. Not long after, Chicago producers and rappers adopted the beat into their own, more violent ways. Producers like DJ Londen Buckner, who produced for SouthSide and Eastside Chicago rappers from G herbo, Dej Loaf to Kevin Gates and more. Buckner was a big developer in the drill sound of Chicago and father the sound of UK drill as well.
One Rapper, King Louie, was the first to incorporate the Luger type beat into his music in his debut mixtape ‘Manupbandup,’ where he referenced the word Drill many times. This was believed and seen as the birth of Drill Music, not only in Chicago, but throughout the world. The next year in 2011, what was aggressive rap style type of music, in no time became a way for hoods or gangs to disrespect one another and one of the key ingredients of drill, which is dissing.
“When we hit him, he ain’t comin’ back, smokin’ loud , this buddy loud, so I ain’t comin’ back,” Keef said in his first song off his third mixtape called Bang.
Dissing progressed in drill songs to the point the dead were being disrespected in songs motivated by neighborhood beefs throughout the SouthSide. The disrespect only grew from there.
In the same year, Chief Keef, born and raised in Parkway Gardens, or famously known to many as O’Block, released his third mixtape called “Bang.” Keef used his exclusively Luger style beats and on his first song, disrespected a dead gang member named Shondale Gregory (Tooka), member of the Gangster Disciples (GD) of the southside.
Tooka’s name is still relevant today as known O’Block members and gangs clicked up with O’block, speak upon his name in their music. Most of Southside’s famously known drill rappers came from certain gangs and areas, which determined who was beefing with who. Places like 600 Brick City, 300 Lamron, and O’Block before joining forces, beefed with 069 Brick Squad and Tookavilla or STL. As the beef got more dangerous, that’s why you would see rappers from these areas become close to fight against their “opps” or enemy.
Beefing in the streets soon became popular, as drill rappers known as E Day and FBG Duck, and Billionaire Black from Tookaville would take their mutual hostile relationship online, kicking off the online trend of calling out their enemy. It became popular disrespecting your nemesis online. It was common after you or your crew killed someone to go straight to the studio and talk about the person that just died.
When drill first hit the rap scene, homicide rates were looking like Chicago back in the 1990’s. During the 90’s, it was the Gangster Disciples run by notorious Kingpin, Larry Hoover. Hoover and his gang was known for their role in controlling SouthSide drug trade, but he currently sits in prison for his role in a murder of a drug dealer.
Hoover’s empire was believed to have around 30,000 members across the country, and prosecutors assumed he was bringing in as much as $100 million a year in drug sales, but that wasn’t it. The gang was suspected of being responsible for hundreds of murders throughout Chicago beginning in the 1980s.
When the crime rate is in the top 20 among cities across the country, what kind of impact does Drill music bring to the communities and the youth who listen to their local area artists?
Current Morehouse College Student and Chicago Southside resident Robert Pinkney, who was born on 83rd and Cottage Grove, a 20-block distance from Southside neighborhood O’Block. His knowledge on the Southside is thick as everyone knows everything through social media, school, and family relatives.
I asked Pinkney about his first person viewpoint of how Drill music impacted the youth through the Southside.
“Chicago has already had violence, but the violence became popularized,” Pickney said.
Pinckney mentioned that people who had never been involved in anything, now are making themselves involved, claiming they are a part of something they never were involved in. Adding that he has great insight into what goes on around his side of town, especially around most of the dangerous areas where the gang wars are happening. It’s thanks to social media, making it easy to know what’s going on in the streets because fellow gang members post everything through their timelines.
“Now people are killing for clicks and likes, so you can get recognized in a song,” Pickney said.
He mentioned as well that the weapons that are flooding the Southside violence don’t always come from within Chicago. Pickney says people would go to neighboring states Indiana and Wisconsin, which have little to no gun laws and bring them back, making big profit.
I asked Pickney how Drill impacted his generation and the youth growing up.
“There are so few options that people feel desperate, either hooping or rapping,” Pickney explains.
Everyone knows someone who knows someone that was involved or living currently in the neighborhoods of some of the treacherous high crime areas, says Pickney. But he claims the issues leveraging the youth into this gang lifestyle is really on the city and government officials ignoring the problems. Pickney talks about how Keef shed light on the situation throughout the Southside at such a young age through his music, but no one paid attention enough to help, just watched as viewers.
“Keef represented an entire generation of children who were disenfranchised and who were failed by the system,” Pickney said. “He shined a light on what was a serious problem in which the city and country was sweeping under the rug.”
I asked Pickney what if Keef, who currently has a bench warrant for a DUI charge in Chicago, came back to perform a show. He says the show would be shown, but keef is so influential inside of Chi-Town that people who barely speak english would come, alongside himself, because they love the rapper. Drill music doesn;t just have an influential impact on just Chicago, it’s now a trend in cities like London and New York.
In London, United Kingdom, Drill has been a epicenter of their crime as well.
“In 2018, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Cressida Dick, singled out Drill music videos for fuelling the surge of violence in London and asked YouTube to remove any videos that glamorise violence. YouTube then removed 30 videos,” Per Donya Lamrhari by The Children Society.
One UK drill rapper named Digga D, has restrictions on his lyrics, and can’t release any new track unless his transcripts are approved by the UK authorities.
Throughout parts of New York, Crime is the highest it’s been at extremely alarming rates. The New York drill scene is too dangerous to the point where allegations of them being removed from Knowdable events like Rolling Loud, per New York Times. New York Mayor Eric Adams once agreed to sit down with famous drill rappers from the city for solutions to decreasing crime, as he called for a ban on drill music.
“We’re going to sit down and really bring in the rappers and show how this is impacting and is causing loss of lives of young people like them,” Adams said per ABC News.
At just 18 years old, popular drill rapper Kay Flock, was charged in a murder outside a barbershop on West 151st Street in Manhattan of a 24 year old man. At just 17 years old, rising Brooklyn, New York drill rapper Jordany Aracena was gunned down by five masked men for the lyrics he put in his content of a song.
Brooklyn is a hot spot for rapper disputes through online beef. In fact, there are many media outlet pages that shine light on the Brooklyn drill scene throughout the city. One outlet is Complex, known for highlighting entertainers in different industries from rap to athletes to journalists. The only reason outlets like Complex are able to get information from within the city, is because those same rappers and their friends, post everything online on their socials or go live on Instagram.
“He was very new to drill and said the wrong thing in a song. That may have made him a target. In my district, we’ve seen that pattern over and over,” City Councilman Oswald Feliz said, per Revolt.
Gangster rap, driven by social media beef is what Drill music is. Social media has made it a necessity for young or old rappers to conversate with their fans, but their enemies. In doing so, puts a target on their back, not only by the crowd the lyrics were aimed at, but by the police as well.
The rap community and industry is even fighting back against states who try to use lyrics of the artist as evidence in the courtroom. States like Maryland don’t allow such evidence into the courtroom, but states like Georgia where rapper Young Thug and his YSL Gang are facing Rico charges and in the courtroom, the prosecution brought up his music to make their case for him not receiving bond.
City Officials Adams or Councilman Feliz are just many in the government fighting for an end to crime in their cities. Through Drill music, its impact has reached limits throughout communities around the world that stopping Drill as a whole could not only hurt the money made for music companies, but it could shut down resources used to promote the content, such as youtube and instagram.
So many young artists in the drill music industry have died, so many young people are dead or in jail because of their lyrics in their drill songs, but where does it end, when does it stop.
Who will step up with a solution and effectively put an end to the drill seen in order to bring down crime rates; is what’s awaiting to be seen.
