Drill rap videos that have been banned on YouTube are now appearing on Pornhub.
The videos first came to national attention in April 2018 after a Sunday Times article reported about a link between drill music and the rise in youth murders in British cities.
The variation of trap music originated in Chicago and frequently features MCs and rappers making threats, and has been accused of glamourising gang violence as well as encouraging knife and gun crime.
The music sub-genre became popular in London and the Metropolitan police was reported by the Times to have linked the rise in the capital’s knife-crime epidemic to an attack on a leading drill artist.
The music videos found a home on YouTube, earning millions of views and even ending up being promoted by mainstream leaders such as DJ Tim Westwood.
The music videos found a home first on YouTube, earning millions of views and even ending up being promoted by mainstream leaders such as DJ Tim Westwood
However, in May 2018, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick sent YouTube numerous requests to delete dozens of violent music videos, saying: ‘Anything that glamorises, celebrates or encourages the senseless murder of our young people or stabbing someone with a 10in knife is simply wrong.’
‘Social media companies have a responsibility to be part of that and must act swiftly to stop this harmful material disseminating. I’m looking forward to working with them even more in the future,’ she added.
YouTube ended up removing 30 of the 60 videos the Met requested be taken down. However, a Mail on Sunday investigation in June found that the internet giant is making a profit from the advertising that accompanies the drill videos.
Adverts for everything from Avengers toys to Rita Ora’s singles have appeared before the videos.
Drill rappers include the likes of A6, who has been jailed for stabbing a man 13 times in an unprovoked attack.
One of his videos features his gang, Block 6, holding long serrated blades and lyrics about stabbing people.
The videos of a Brixton gang called 410 include lyrics such as: ‘The lyrics warn: ‘F**k shanks [knives] man, I like big guns, chrome to your face where’s my ones? 12-inch in my waist that’s stainless, 12-inch in my waist go through chest plate.’
And, as Dazed Magazine reports, the music videos that have been taken down on YouTube are now appearing on the adult video streaming website, Pornhub.
Videos featuring Tim Westwood, UK drill groups BSIDE and 1011—the latter of which is no longer allowed to make music or pen lyrics that ‘encourage violence’ without getting police permission first—have started appearing on the porn site.
Dazed said these videos, and many 1011 films, have begun appearing on the site over the last weekend of June.
This isn’t the first time Pornhub was controversially home to music videos. Back in 2014, the site ended up streaming Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo, even though Jay-Z’s Tidal secured exclusive rights to the album.