The New York Sound

The same Afro-diasporic rhythms have been hot in New York since the heyday of the Charleston a century ago, especially during the past two decades of dancehall crossover. This context primed another serendipitous moment of Black Atlantic exchange in the case of drill in 2016, abetted by the internet. The children of the children of Caribbean immigrants in London started making “drill-type beats” for their counterparts in Brooklyn (many of whom also come from Caribbean families). They engaged YouTube’s recommendation algorithms to direct their work to established and aspiring New York drill artists: 22Gz, Sheff G, Pop Smoke. These Brooklynites, inspired by what they heard from Chicago but seeking a sound of their own, decided the tailor-made beats hit the spot, not always knowing where they had been produced. These beats propelled NYC drill’s big hits and helped it come into its own. Modeled on the sound of U.K. producers such as AXL Beats and 808Melo, the icy but dancy approach gave Brooklyn drill its own energy and a sound distinct from Chicago’s. Producers in the Bronx and other boroughs picked up the baton and started adding sample-based touches to the template, heard on songs like B-Lovee’s Mary J. Blige–indebted “My Everything,” bringing drill into more direct dialogue with all manner of pop. Drake has already come knocking for beats, while posthumous Pop Smoke songs and new Fivio Foreign tracks climb the charts. This evolution away from macabre, macho music might have appeared incongruous at first, but it now seems fitting that the first major star to emerge from drill’s biggest new scene broke out with a song called “Welcome to the Party.”