Drill music is a rap subgenre that began on Chicago’s South Side in the early 2010s, built on trap drums, a dark melody and a flat, unhurried delivery about street life. The name stuck, the sound traveled, and by the 2020s “drill” meant at least three different things in three different cities. My short version: Chicago wrote the attitude, London rebuilt the beat, and Brooklyn borrowed London’s version. The wider map of rap’s styles is on the rap subgenres hub.
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Why it’s called drill
“Drill” is street slang for fighting or retaliating. The word was in local use before it became a style label. Per Wikipedia’s drill music entry, Pac Man, a rapper from Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood, is credited as the first to attach it to local rap, with his 2010 track “It’s a Drill.”
Careful phrasing matters here. That song tied the word to the music; it did not found the genre. Origin claims in drill are contested, and Pac Man, King Louie and Chief Keef all show up in different tellings.
Where drill came from: Chicago, 2010 to 2012
The early scene was small, local and tangled up with gang conflict between Chicago’s rival factions. Pac Man and King Louie are usually named first, then Lil Durk, Fredo Santana and Chief Keef, with producer Young Chop on many of the beats.
Chief Keef is the one who took it national. His 2012 singles “Love Sosa” and “I Don’t Like” went viral, he signed with Interscope, and his debut album Finally Rich came out late that year. Kanye West remixed “I Don’t Like” in 2012 and later cited drill as an influence on Yeezus (2013), per the same Wikipedia entry.
Young Chop is often filed as the heir to trap’s Lex Luger sound. Asked about it by XXL in February 2013, he said no: “Lex Luger? Nah,” naming Shawty Redd and Drumma Boy instead. He also said he and Keef could finish about four records in a day and wrapped Finally Rich in two weeks. The genre’s most characteristic sound came out of fast, loose sessions, not a plan.
The sonic recipe
Drill grows out of trap and takes its subject matter from gangsta rap. What it adds is mood.
- Drums. Trap’s rigid snare pattern gets skippy, syncopated hi-hats laid over it, a contrast the BBC has pointed to.
- Melody. Chicago drill is traditionally marked by synth brass, bell melodies and crash cymbals, with busy snare patterns underneath. Think horror-film chimes, not Southern sunshine.
- Delivery. Flat, close to deadpan, with crisp enunciation. It is the opposite of the slurred, melodic approach people later called mumble rap. The calm is the point: the content is grim, so the voice does not perform it.
- Content. Adversarial, often naming rivals. That part is why the music became a legal and political subject, covered below.
A fair way to hold all this: Mackintosh, in a Literary Hub excerpt from his book Neon Screams, argues drill is less a fixed genre than an aesthetic stance, a return to documentary street realism after a decade of fantasy rap. He calls it a Rorschach test that each city reads differently.
UK drill: the London rewrite
UK drill emerged in Brixton, South London, around 2012 or 2013, depending on which entry you read, borrowing heavily from Chicago drill and from the earlier road rap scene. According to Wikipedia’s UK drill entry, 150 is often credited as pioneers, with 67, Harlem Spartans, CGM and 410 among the innovators. 150 came out of Angell Town and 67 out of Brixton Hill. LD of 67 is often called the genre’s godfather.
The beat changed. UK drill generally runs faster than Chicago, roughly 138 to 151 BPM, with sliding 808 bass notes, a steady 3+3+2 hi-hat pattern, and snares that land on the fourth beat rather than the third every two bars. That slide is the signature. If Chief Keef’s records feel like a slow march, a London drill record skates.
The scene got big in the UK charts, too. “Homerton B” by Unknown T was the first UK drill single to chart, Headie One’s Edna became the first UK drill album to reach number one in 2020, and Tion Wayne and Russ Millions’ “Body” was the first UK drill song to top the UK Singles Chart in 2021. Headie One’s “Both” reached number 13 on the singles chart.
Brooklyn drill: the re-import
Brooklyn drill began as a Chicago offshoot around 2014, with Bobby Shmurda’s “Hot Nigga” the early marker. Per Wikipedia’s Brooklyn drill entry, 22Gz’s “Suburban” (2016) and Sheff G’s “No Suburban” (2017) are credited with its rise.
Then London producers got involved. 808Melo, AXL Beats and Ghosty brought UK drill production into New York. 808Melo made Pop Smoke’s “Welcome to the Party” (2019), and Pop Smoke’s mixtape Meet the Woo was produced entirely by 808Melo and Trap House Mob. Fivio Foreign’s “Big Drip,” produced by Axl and released June 5, 2019, is now certified Platinum in the US. Pop Smoke was killed in 2020; his “Dior” earned a Grammy nomination in 2021.
The result was London’s sliding bass under New York cadence and bravado. Mackintosh’s read is that Brooklyn drill is more aspirational and UK drill more fatalistic, and that it grew out of rappers working over UK beats online. That is the best short description of the hybrid.
Drill today: spread and splinters
Drill scenes now exist in Ireland, Australia, the Netherlands, Ghana, Uganda, Denmark and France, and Wikipedia also lists Detroit, Atlanta and Philadelphia scenes. Mackintosh’s Darwinian image fits: the same idea adapts to each environment and produces a different “sound-species.”
The most interesting New York mutation is “sexy drill.” Per Wikipedia’s Brooklyn drill entry, the Bronx producer Cash Cobain is credited with it, a version that keeps drill’s sampling techniques but drops much of its violence. Cash Cobain and Chow Lee’s 2021 track “Nobody” and their 2022 project 2 Slizzy 2 Sexy are the usual starting points, and some tracks fold in the kick drums of Jersey club, the Newark dance style. That is a long way from Chicago in 2012, and it is still called drill by people who care about the sampling and the bounce.
Drill vs trap
They share ancestry: 808s, Southern production, Atlanta’s influence. Trap can be about anything, and its roots are in Atlanta. Drill is scene-coded. Its rhythm leans on skipping hi-hats over a more rigid snare, its melodies run darker, and its lyrics are tied to a specific street-level setting. A trap record can be a party. A drill record usually isn’t.
The controversy: chronicling or exploiting
Drill has been argued about in courtrooms and city halls for a decade, and the stakes are real; Chicago videographer ZackTV, who documented the early scene, was murdered in April 2019.
At Harvard in 2023, panelists split on whether drill documents violence or profits from it. Lupe Fiasco said people dancing to drill are “dancing on graves,” while sociologist Forrest Stuart argued that villainizing the music helps the criminal legal system target young Black men, and described how young people on Chicago’s South Side use drill to map which blocks are safe. The Harvard Gazette write-up also notes that prosecutors and police have used drill-related activity, such as lyrics shared on social media, to increase charges.
In the UK, the Met Police’s Operation Domain, set up in 2015, led YouTube to delete more than half the videos it flagged in May 2018. In 2019, members of 410 received a suspended sentence for breaching a gang injunction that barred them from performing certain lyrics. In New York, Mayor Eric Adams directed promoters in February 2022 not to allow drill at city festivals.
I am not going to settle that argument here. Both things are true: the music is documentary and commercial, and the people it names are real.
Six songs that show the range
- Chief Keef, “Love Sosa” (2012). Chicago’s template going viral.
- 67 featuring Giggs, “Let’s Lurk” (2016). Brixton’s reply, with Giggs on the guest verse.
- 22Gz, “Suburban” (2016). Brooklyn’s early shape, before London beats arrived.
- Fivio Foreign, “Big Drip” (2019). Axl’s production, Brooklyn’s chant-ready sound.
- Pop Smoke, “Welcome to the Party” (2019). 808Melo’s beat, the transatlantic handshake.
- Headie One, “Both.” UK drill in its chart-friendly form.
FAQ
Who invented drill music? No single person. Pac Man is credited with first attaching the word to Chicago rap in 2010, and Chief Keef is considered its primary popularizer.
What’s the difference between drill and trap? Trap is the broader Southern style and can cover any subject. Drill is darker, scene-coded and built on skippy hi-hats over a stiff snare.
Why is UK drill different from Chicago drill? It runs faster, roughly 138 to 151 BPM, with sliding 808s and a 3+3+2 hi-hat pattern, where Chicago leans on synth brass and bell melodies at a slower pace.
Who is the biggest drill artist today? Nobody keeps an agreed ranking. Chief Keef is the genre’s primary popularizer, and Pop Smoke carried it to the mainstream.
Start with Chief Keef’s Finally Rich, then play 67’s “Let’s Lurk” right after it; the gap between those two records is the whole argument.
— Davood Tavakoli, Cyphlore