
Deeper than rap
“You can record a song on your phone and within 24 hours, that could potentially have a million views, which would change your whole destiny.”
Mr Montgomery [Presenter and Filmmaker]
“When society points a finger at us, it doesn’t realise that we are pointing two straight back.”
Unknown T [Drill Music Artist]
Sources that explore the politics and creativity of rap in response to, and well beyond, the justice system.
In 2020, British rap accounted for 22 per cent of all singles purchased in the UK (Financial Times, 2021). For all the scrutiny and scapegoating rap has been subject to, the genre and its offshoots which include the likes of Drill and Grime have become influential mainstays in popular culture. This is true not only in Britain but also internationally.
Rather than focusing reductively on rap’s sometimes provocative content (which is far from exclusive to the genre), there is great value in embracing the form as a tool of communication, a source of social and political commentary and an artistic endeavour. Rap’s commentary includes folding in political critique about the criminal justice system and racial capitalism.
Press articles
- Ethnographer Soundclash: A UK rap and grime story
Joy White and Jonathan Ilan, riffsjournal.org (2021) - Art Against Knives launch urgent appeal to keep their youth space open
Franklyn Addo, GUAP (2021) - Birmingham rapper M1llionz: Really and truly, Drill is beautiful
Sam Davies, The Guardian (2021) - How UK rap became a multimillion-pound business
Sam Davies, Financial Times (2021) - Why women in rap have been the real stars of lockdown
Shakeena Johnson, gal-dem (2020) - Drillosophy: Why UK rappers are teaching Plato in lockdown
Aniefiok Ekpoudom, The Guardian (2020) - Youth clubbing: Inside a new generation of London studios
Will Pritchard, Crack (2020) - Music saved my life: Banning Drill takes hope away from Black British kids like me
Konan, The Guardian (2019) - Don’t censor drill music, listen to what it’s trying to tell us
Ciaran Thapar, The Guardian (2019) - How musicians re-adjust to public life after time in prison
Kamila Rymajdo, Vice (2019) - Britain is silencing the stars of drill music – and robbing the disenfranchised of a voice
Novar, The Independent (2019) - ‘Stop silencing musicians’ Krept & Konan tell UK courts
Anita Awbi, PRS for Music (2019) - Now that Grime is ‘Pop’, when will the panic about Drill music stop?
Lambros Fatsis, Discover Society (2019) - It’s no surprise that Drill music reflects young Black men’s reality
Gaika, Dazed (2018) - The war against rap: censoring drill may seem radical but it’s not new
Dan Hancox, The Guardian (2018) - The future of UK Drill music
Ciaran Thapar, Red Bull (2018) - Jailing J Hus for possessing a knife won’t solve the problem
Franklyn Addo, The Guardian (2018) - The Drill and knife crime story is a classic chicken-and-egg dilemma
Dan Hancox, Vice (2018) - Music not gang culture: How drill can help young people
Ian McQuaid, BBC Online (2018)
Pocasts and Teds
- George the Poet, ‘Have You Heard George’s Podcast?’
Award winning spoken word artist, rapper, author and social commentator - Cheraine Donalea Scott, Grime, Brexit, Identity
Surviving Society with Chantelle and Tissot (2021) - Adam Elliott-Cooper, Policing, politics and drill
Surviving Society Podcast with Chantelle and Tissot (2019)
Documentaries
- Terms & Conditions: A UK Drill Story
(Andre Montgomery-Johnson & Brian Hill, 2020) - TRUE 808 | UK Drill
(Milo, 2021) - Defending Digga D
(Marian Mohamed, 2020) - Dangerous Associations
(Colin Stone, 2020)
Music
An annotated selection of music tracks to accompany the Prosecuting Rap project. Compiled by Franklyn Addo.