Spinning The Block: What Does Pop Smoke’s Death Mean to the NY Drill Scene

“The Woo’s posthumously released album is a hard listen. Unlike other albums released this year, the difficulty of the listen is not due to the quality of the music, but rather the album’s content. The Many Men interpolated hook of Got It On Me is piercing considering the Brooklynite’s death by gun violence. It is precisely this intersection of hip hop, gun violence and reality that drives the drill music genre’s impact and simultaneously has been its demise. After drill took a circuitous route to resurrecting itself, will the public’s fear spin the block on the genre?

In order to get the full context of this question, we must go back to the more than humble beginnings of Chicago’s drill scene. Drill, as a sub-genre, began as a style of hip hop forcing together the otherwise opposed concepts of realism and minimalism. The production palette, inspired heavily by artists like Young Chop, was simple: heavy percussion which led to a distinct bounce on the track and dark synths. These simple beats left a vast amount of space which often led to a cold feeling to the production. The lyrics did much the same. As a genre, the lyrics to these songs were not intended to be poetic, but rather simple and truthful. Gone were the metaphors and similes and in place of them came straight forward lyrics, often times about very real crimes. It is the realism of these lines that initially intrigued audiences, especially in a genre that celebrates authenticity. However, this authenticity blended with the medias new found obsession with the controversially dubbed “Chi-raq”, led to a rapid rise in popularity and a subsequent hasty fall.

As the mainstream explored drill through acts like Chief Keef, they got a dose of the reality that these young rappers were speaking to. This became abundantly clear as listeners lost their favorite artists to the same violence that the audiences rapped along to- often from their comparatively safe environments. For instance, Lil Durk’s 2014 XXL Freshman Freestyle, a one-time momentous performance for up and coming artists, contained lyrics celebrating the murder of fellow drill artist Lil Jojo. Thus, fans rapped lyrics regarding the murder of a 14 year old child, largely from behind expensive phones and computers. I believe it is this conflict that led to the end of drill. While audiences loved the feeling of invincibility that the hyper aggressive lyrics gave them, listeners were too often reminded of the hyper-realism of an environment that they did not understand and could not support. This was multiplied by the national infatuation with the supposedly unexplainable violence in Chicago, often used for political posture more than actual concern. With that mainstream hip hop relegated drill to a local and underground genre.

However, drill began to resurrect itself, but this time across the pond. UK grime began to shift in South London and take on the hyper-violent lyrics of drill- largely during London’s rising knife crime trend. Drill revived itself as a blend of the UK’s grime scene and the minimalism and realism inspired by Chicago. While UK drill was being banned in London, it was starting to make its way to the States. UK drill never truly captured a foothold in the U.S. until New York rappers took the UK drill beats and began to rap over them. Drill had made a circuitous return to the mainstream and we all welcomed it to the party.

The Brooklyn drill scene bubbled locally for awhile, until the baritone voice of Pop Smoke began to take over radio air waves across the country. The Woo’s meteoric rise to fame mimicked that of the Chicago drill music genre. Unfortunately, Pop Smokes career would also mimic the abrupt end of the genre as well. Before he could release his highly anticipated debut album, the Brooklyn rapper was killed during a robbery. An addition to the litany of drill music artists lost to the same violence celebrated by audiences. With the New York drill scene’s biggest act dying of the same gun violence in all of his songs will New York’s drill scene face the same fate as Chicago’s? Will the mainstream hip hop audience spin the block again to kill off its uncomfortability with enjoying the realism of death?

While my initial belief was that New York’s drill scene would quickly suffer the same fate as Chicago’s, there are a few complicating factors. First, while Pop Smoke died due to gun violence it is not part of a national political conversation. The largely feigned concern for Chicago street violence brought distinct and crippling critique for the genre. Secondly, Pop Smoke’s murder appears to be much more isolated than that of the Chicago drill scene. Pop Smoke was killed in an assumingly unrelated Los Angeles robbery. Many of the Chicago drill scene rappers were killed for reasons that were explained in booths and distributed nationally. Lastly, there is a small rejuvenation of the Chicago drill scene led by artists new and old like King Von, Polo G and the aforementioned Lil Durk that is happening contemporaneously with the Woo’s death. As such, while Pop Smoke’s death is tragic, his now #1 posthumous album may be a tent pole project for a lasting sub-genre.

RIP FBG Duck”