It’s the most captivating sound the city has heard in decades — and also the most misunderstood. CamilleSquires spoke with 19 artists who define the New York drill scene. Portfolio by Ashley Peña
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➼ This June, as he arrived at JFK to perform at Hot 97’s Summer Jam festival, he was arrested on attempted-murder charges for a March shooting at a Brooklyn club where three people suffered gunshot wounds. A month after that arrest, 22Gz released a new single, “Sniper Gang Freestyle Pt. 2.” There are some people who don’t take the craft seriously, and they just use the drill sound to go at their enemies or say crazy stuff. And then there’s people who actually love rap, who want to get signed, and the reason they’re doing this is all for money and for a deal to better their family. I’m not going to say drill wasn’t made for dissing, but it wasn’t made for violence.
One thing about me: You’ll never see me dissing on the internet. I don’t argue on social media; I don’t highlight certain people who have passed away in my music. That’s what’s made me transcend: I stay out the way, and it’s respected so far. I was just on the block with my friends chilling, and now they hear me on the radio. That motivates people. That shows them, “Yo, we could all make it out. Even if it’s 50 of us rapping, at least one of us will.
“There are other good female rappers, right? But you’re not going to find a female rapper who sounds like Kenzo B. I don’t like taking a lot of breaths; I want to fill every gap in the beat. If I’m mad, I write. I just make good music when I’m upset.” —Kenzo B➼ 22Gz is credited with helping bring the U.K. scene’s dancier style to Brooklyn. With a long history of police run-ins dating back to 2014, he has felt the NYPD’s crackdown on drill more than most.
22Gz I know over 20, 30 rappers who got signed just through this sound alone. Some of these kids don’t leave their block. They don’t go to school. They don’t leave their neighborhood. They don’t see nothing but that. I know a lot of kids in the ghetto who love recording in the studio. That’s all they want to do, and it’s probably the only positive thing they’re doing the whole year. When I was coming up, we didn’t have that access. We was all trying to be ball-players, and not everyone can.
They really want to crack down on drill music, but you can’t stop people from saying what they want to say. We see the little games the NYPD plays. Somebody has a show and then it gets canceled by the police at the last minute. That can really discourage a person, like, “Nah, I don’t even want to rap no more if they’re going to keep doing this.”➼ Young Devyn is a relative newcomer to the Brooklyn drill scene, but she is already a music-industry veteran.
A lot of these drill rappers are really good people. When you’re a rapper and when you come from a certain type of environment, even though you don’t owe anybody anything, you feel like you have a responsibility. It’s not like pop or R&B — when you rap, you are a voice for a community. So when you make it out, you feel like you got to be able to work hard to be able to put people in better positions.
The genre is always expanding, and it’s because of the innovators. Sample drill wouldn’t be possible without Pop Smoke, period. The whole point of my latest album was about expanding drill. I got songs with Alicia Keys, KayCyy, Chloe Bailey, Chris Brown — people you wouldn’t expect to be on drill beats. Expanding my content helps drill get bigger instead of keeping it in a bubble with people looking at it as new-school gangster rap.
It’s a shame the way the whole genre gets portrayed. You can’t just put it on drill like we’re the only people talking about a gun or death. I guess with drill, you can kind of understand the lyrics in a more literal way than a lot of other styles, so people notice it more. But it just don’t make no sense. I get called to perform at bar mitzvahs, and these kids know all the music and all the words and it don’t persuade them to do nothing violent.
“Everybody makes drill different. For Adams to sit here and say, 'That’s just a violent genre,' is crazy.” —Polo Perks➼ Along with Shawny Binladen and the rest of his Yellow Tape Boyz crew, Big Yaya holds it down for Queens in a genre dominated by rappers from Brooklyn and the Bronx. Bobby Shmurda Drill is a category I don’t want to be. The stereotypes about it are coming from the people pushing the narratives. If it’s all about gangster rap and shooting things up, then why the fuck are rappers onstage performing? They should have no time for that if the perception was real.
Sometimes I would wake up in the studio saying, I’m not feeling it — I’m depressed, I’m angry, or whatever — and I would rap off that energy. Eventually, as I got older and deeper into rap, I had more to lose. So it’s like I had to put things away in order to keep growing and doing what I love. The NYPD is basically saying they don’t want us to grow; they don’t want us to be better people. I ain’t come up on no nine-to-five job — none of that. I was doing this. It’s my way out.
Bobby Shmurda Drill is a category I don’t want to be. The stereotypes about it are coming from the people pushing the narratives. If it’s all about gangster rap and shooting things up, then why the fuck are rappers onstage performing? They should have no time for that if the perception was real. Sometimes I would wake up in the studio saying, I’m not feeling it — I’m depressed, I’m angry, or whatever — and I would rap off that energy. Eventually, as I got older and deeper into rap, I had more to lose. So it’s like I had to put things away in order to keep growing and doing what I love. The NYPD is basically saying they don’t want us to grow; they don’t want us to be better people. I ain’t come up on no nine-to-five job — none of that. I was doing this. It’s my way out.
I was born and raised in Canarsie. From my hood, the only other person to do it was Pop. I don’t talk about it much, but I grew up with him. I’m talking about sleepovers-in-my-crib type shit. He let people from where we’re from know that it’s possible to make it. I’ll always be grateful to him for that because outside of him, unless you’re talking about Biggie, there’s not that many people with that bass, that deep voice that know how to home in on it. Pop did that too. He opened that door.
Portfolio by Ashley Peña, Ashley Pena Dougie B & B-Lovee ➼ Twenty-one-year-old Dougie B , 21-year-old B-Lovee, and 19-year-old Kay Flock are childhood friends who became three of the newest faces of Bronx drill after their first hit, “Brotherly Love,” gained attention in 2021. In December of that year, Flock was arrested on murder charges. Still, his career continues to ascend. In April, Flock and Dougie released “Shake It,” featuring Cardi B.
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