Drill Era
tagStarted 2012Peak 2019-2023Last big hit still active
Located in 1 route
Menacing, sliding-808 street rap with dark minor keys, sparse skittering hi-hats, and deadpan, violence-narrating flows. Chicago's original grim minimalism mutated through UK syncopation into the Brooklyn-led global wave, defined by booming slid bass, eerie melodic loops, and a cold, reportorial delivery over haunted, halting beats.
History
Began in Chicago's South Side around 2012, then crossed to the UK where producers swapped in syncopated, sliding 808 patterns. That UK template returned to New York via producers and a Brooklyn scene, exploding worldwide by 2020 as drill became one of the era's most exported street-rap sounds.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drill_music
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_drill
- https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/how-drill-became-new-york-citys-defining-rap-sound/