![]() ![]() They release drill music – a sub-genre of hip-hop that emerged from Chicago a decade ago, before spreading to London, and eventually landing in Australia.ĭrill is known for its faster, heavier sound and raw lyrics that focus on the grittiness of street life – violence, drug-dealing and run-ins with the police. In 2019, Mount Druitt-based artists OneFour became the focus of police ire. The announcement is the latest escalation in an ongoing battle between NSW police and rappers largely based in western Sydney. The parallels between what’s happening here and the skirmishes in the US in the ’90s are pretty clear – but the lack of freedom of speech protections in this country mean our equivalents of NWA and Tupac are on the back foot. More than 30 years after NWA burst out of Compton, Australia is living through its own war between police and sections of the hip-hop community. The battle between hip-hop and the police hasn’t let up in the US, and has even intensified in recent years, but America’s commitment to freedom of speech has helped to protect the rights of artists to tell their stories, regardless of how provocative. The family of the slain trooper claimed the lyrics had advocated violence but a landmark court decision found that, even if that was the case, the song was protected by the first amendment. In 1997, rapper Tupac Shakur’s label was sued after a Texas state trooper was shot by a man listening to Shakur’s music. It was dramatised in the 2015 film Straight Outta Compton, and it foreshadowed a long-term battle between the hip-hop community and those who claim a link between rap lyrics in violence.
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