All three artists, as well as others, including another OFB affiliate RV and members of Brixton group 410, are forbidden from entering or even rapping about particular London postcodes. Digga D has to submit lyrics to the police before releasing them. In February, Skengdo and AM were given suspended jail sentences for performing one of their songs an unprecedented moment in British legal history. His case raises questions about the ethics of violent music and the characters who make drill, and its ability to influence young minds.īut amid a moral panic in the media, valid criticism has collapsed into censorship. UK drill’s 19-year-old former poster boy Unknown T – real name Daniel Lena – has been charged with the murder of 20-year-old Steven Narvaez-Jara. Many people are concerned about the music’s supposed capacity to entrench real-life violence. Unforgiving lyricism about the extremes of disfranchised, hypermasculine adolescent life – nihilistic references to knife violence (often in the form of provocation and bleak, detailed descriptions of drug dealing) – fills nearly every song. Since it took off in London, it has veered towards the fast-paced energy of grime, its wise old musical uncle, and away from its roots in Chicago drill and US trap. UK drill music is characterised by a thumping, swinging bassline that sounds like the engine of a doubledecker bus it is stitched together by tinny, marching-band snare drums and haunting piano or synth melodies. A community centre was instead sold off to a private company and rebranded as a gym, “and the council aren’t going to help us”. ![]() “They were designed to house youth enterprises, but nothing round here has much value.” He says a youth centre “would have been helpful as a place to organise and train young people who have nothing else to do here”. It’s just that we’re lacking in resources.” Densu points across the road at hollowed-out shopfronts. “I could give youngers jobs helping to run the camera team, social media, marketing. He is talking about the messages he receives from artists wanting to collaborate and record label powerplayers keen to invest in OFB’s ascent.īusiness is booming, then, but against the odds. (The third member of the band, SJ, who shot to popularity with fans for his solo anthem Youngest in Charge is not around today.) “Every day it gets more crazy,” Densu says, chuckling and shaking his head. Bandokay raps in quick, aggressive barks Double Lz’s voice is deep and pained. ![]() Through music, using the technology available to us, we’re coming together to run a business.”Īrriving with Bandokay is Double Lz: the pair are members of OFB, AKA Original Farm Boys, one of the most talked-about drill acts, thanks to their unapologetically raw and dramatic collective style. We’re known as one of the most notorious estates in the UK. ![]() He speaks passionately of “a unity among us. Yet Densu, 33, believes things can change. Few stories since, particularly after Duggan’s death, have managed to redirect the violent narrative of Broadwater Farm in the public imagination. “After 35 years of darkness, there can be light,” he says, referring to the 1985 riot that put the north London estate’s name on the national media map. ![]() He sits beside me on a black metal railing as buses trundle by. I wait to meet Duggan with his manager, Isaac Densu, who also grew up round here. ‘Front Street’ on the Broadwater Farm estate.
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