Who made drill rap popular series#

Then there’s Ghosty who, despite being just 15 when UK drill emerged, has quickly risen to the top thanks to viral hits like Digga D’s ‘No Diet’, and is one of the key reasons why the UK iteration has grown on another, serious drill audience, New Yorkers.Įven before drill hit the UK, Carns Hill was constructing dark, ominous rap and trap instrumentals for artists like Blade Brown and Youngs Teflon, as well as his own ‘O.T’ series of tapes, that were steeped in melodrama and moody minimalism something that would guide his experiments with 67. Similarly, Bkay is credited with injecting drill with grime’s club-ready energy, and the pitched- and chopped-up R&B vocal samples associated with garage. MKThePlug - often in collaboration with M1OnTheBeat and as part of The Brigade network - is credited with raising drill’s tempo and adding grimey bass sounds and garage drum patterns. Brixton’s Carns Hill, a veteran producer of late ’00s rap, was one of the first to dabble in drill, when he worked with 67 on those formative 2014 releases. Then your kick needs to be punchy.” Above all, “just make sure it’s not over-complicated.”įour producers have left indelible marks on the sound of UK drill.

“Number two, the L.A slide isn’t a necessity, but most people like it. That 1-2-2.” Then comes the sliding, woozy bass sound credited to early pioneers like L.A Beats, 808Razz, Mazza Beats and QuietPVCK. What is the core sound of drill? For Bkay, it’s simple: “Number one, the ‘percussion step’ or ‘hi-hat step’. In this creative gold rush, there’s never been a better time to be a fan. The pace of this progression and experimentation is quickening almost by the day. Meanwhile, outside forces from other genres are taking their own, disparate perspectives, and putting their stamp on the drill sound. Afrobeats, grime, bashment, R&B, ’80s pop - it’s all been ripe for sampling and little seems off limit. From within the scene, producers have been drawing influence from increasingly unexpected sources. In just four short years, drill has grown and evolved significantly. “Before that, it was pop music, some hip-hop and Afroswing, and it was all good, but it’s not what the hood wanted.

“We needed drill,” North London producer Bkay tells DJ Mag. The second is harder to pin down, but came gradually over the next couple of years, when UK producers put their own spin on the Chicago sound. It started with the conflict between Brixton Hill’s 67 and Angel Town’s 150, when the crews employed Chicago drill productions, popularised by Chief Keef, Fredo Santana and Yung Chop in the early 2010s.

As grime was enjoying its latest renaissance, something new was happening in South London. Depending on who you ask, UK drill has two birthdays - when drill came to the UK, and when UK drill began.