The London Sound

This is the quality that changed most clearly once drill had become the sound of rap in London by the mid-2010s. In the hands of young Black British producers smitten by Chicago drill but raised on a diet of grime, dubstep, and other dance music, drill’s open space offered room for other rhythms to hop aboard. Appearing within a year of Chicago drill’s explosion, early U.K. drill tracks by Stickz or GR1ZZY & M Dargg emulated Chicago’s, save for the accents. Yet in just a couple of years, the beat shifted, inflected by the U.K.’s distinctive Afro-diasporic heritage. On many tracks, like 2014’s “No Rules,” by Section Boyz, the snare on the fourth beat recedes as other percussive filigree fills in. By 2016, the same beat was replaced by bubbling soca-style snares traveling twice as fast, as in 67’s “Lets Lurk.” London producers sutured early drill’s half-step stomp to grime music’s angular, up-tempo grooves and timeless Afro-Caribbean polyrhythms. For timbres and arrangements, they likewise drew from a local palette: sinewy bass lines surreally sliding from one note to the next, cherished percussion bits sampled from such iconic grime instrumentals as Wiley’s “Ice Rink,” and snarling synth smears recalling dubstep’s half-time wobble. With this infusion of energy and style, something subtle but crucial happened to drill’s formerly plodding beat: It began to float. The effect was as if each bar contained a half-measure of Chicago “half-time” (70 bpm) followed by a full measure of London “double time” (140 bpm), a rhythm similar to Afro-diasporic music from dancehall to salsa—what some would call tresillo or what reggaeton devotees know as dembow. These asymmetries enhance the pushpull feel of the rhythm, creating new momentum and resonance. It’s music for the streets and for the club.