Moral Panic against UK Drill

Rocco Wallis 2nd April 20222nd April 2022 0 Comments

A contemporary form of moral panic is the panic against UK drill music. Due to its themes of gangs, knife violence, drug dealing and other topics related to illegal activity, many believe this genre glorifies and promotes these themes to any who listens to it.

UK drill started to get popular in 2018, along with major concerns about London’s street violence, which caused this music to be censored. Many videos have been taken down from youtube and some rappers have been banned from making music without police permission. The London Metropolitan Police has labelled drill artists as terrorists as stated by Commander Jim Stokley.

“There isn’t specific legislation, and clearly we can’t use terrorism legislation [but] in consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), we have found some existing legislation which we are going to use”.
Commander Jim Stokley, The commander of the London Metropolitan Police’s gang-crime unit, in an interview with The Times.

This means officers no longer need proof to secure a conviction for incitement to violence. Along with the death of a drill artist from stabbing, this was enough evidence for the police that drill is the cause of a lot of stabbings.

Along with the police disnouncing and frowning upon this genre, the mainstream media coverage did the same. The British press harassed streaming platforms for still having “banned” drill tracks on their platforms by artists who were stabbed to death.”Spotify and Apple selling banned violent drill music and tracks by rap group Harlem Spartans days after member was stabbed to death”

In response to this issues, drill is moving away from the violent themes which characteristed its earlier form. With less drill bans happening with each passing year, either the genre will fade into obscurity as its lost its main identity, or will return in its previous more agressive form.

There are countless success stories [like this] out there. But with a mainstream media that is more interested in horror than truth, and a government that listens to its wealthiest rather than its most vulnerable, the positive aspects of UK drill are not being given a fair hearing. Where the police see terrorism, I see uncaptured promise, determination, and resilience.
Ciaran Thapar, September 12, 2018

Most examples are in 2018 and 2019 but do still bleed into the current day, with old fearmongering bans still being in place. But as this is a contemporary issue, there are a few examples below of how England panicked towards drill 4 years ago.

As drill became more popular, worries began to stir. A couple of news articles and journals were made to begin inducing fear in the uneducated. April 25, 2018

“YouTube deletes half of ‘violent’ music videos flagged by Scotland Yard”, a news article by the Evening Standard. 28 May 2018

Armed police surround a group of teenagers due to them recording a drill music video with fake weapons, who were recording the video for UK drill MC Balistik’s “Who’s Next.” July 2018

Two artists were actually found guilty of breaking a criminal behaviour order (CB0) that had forbidden them from mentioning death, injury or rival drill crews in their songs. The nine-month suspended sentence is for breaking the CB0 to not incite violence, which they weren’t technically doing by performing their song. But, the authorities have criminalised this non-criminal act for these particular artists. 20th Feburary 2019