Is drill rap a dead end?

The biggest in the world The drill rapper may spend the rest of his life in bars – and no one should want his crown. This week, Chicago rapper Lil Durk was arrested in Los Angeles as part of an alleged murder plot to kill Quando Rondo in Savannah, Georgia, in August 2022. Instead, Quando's cousin Lul Pab was murdered, prompting Quando's desperate cries at the scene. Then Durk inserted that “no” scream into the intro of an unreleased song, which impressed the same voyeurs and Reddit rats who now think Durk is stupid for getting involved in the beef they were eagerly watching.

Durk's arrest marks the dispute between his friend and OTF partner King Von (killed in 2020) and their rivals Youngboy Never Broke Again (incarcerated) and Quando Rondo (who is awaiting sentencing next week in a federal drug case). What's most disheartening is that it's unclear why the conflict began in the first place – all of these men were once cool. Chicago rapper Lil Reese, a close friend of Durk, told No Jumper that the NBA Youngboy crew occasionally hung out with him in Chicago. In 2019, Durk made an

But apparently something happened behind the scenes that upset their feelings for each other. During an Instagram Live session in March 2019, King Von rejected NBA Youngboy's music, proclaiming, “You've got the cap on your raps,” but then retaliated by saying he was just kidding and they were getting music – In February 2020, Von made a comment on X post asking Youngboy to release a song they made together. In August 2020, Von posted a picture holding hands with someone who fans said was likely Jania Meshell, Youngboy's mother's child (she says they only did a song together). The next day, Youngboy posted a photo on Instagram with the caption, “I'm off making my son fuck your daughter since you trolled,” a photo that many believe was aimed at Von. During the same period, Quando Rondo and Lil Reese began sharing their opinions on social media.

Just days before Von's death, a YoungBoy song featuring Von's on-again, off-again girlfriend, rapper Asian Doll, was leaked. In November 2020, King Von downplayed the break in an interview with DJ Akademiks, noting, “It's nothing too serious,” and saying the internet was blowing it out of proportion. It was his last interview; Later that night, he encountered Quando at a club in Atlanta, fought him, and was then fatally shot, allegedly by Quando's friend Lul Timm. With Von's death, things went beyond the point of resolution. Durk had known Von for years, signing him after he returned home from a murder case in 2017, and together they helped turn Durk's OTF (Only The Family) label into a formidable rap movement.

Over the next few years, Durk and the duo Youngboy and Quando began tirelessly trading opinions on social media and in diss songs. Fans loved it and took to Durk's Instagram comments section to tell him to “fill in for Von.” For these fans, who tend to view the street violence associated with rap like a reality show, Von's death wasn't a sign that things had gone too far, but just another plot point. The dividing lines were drawn by the artists but sharpened by the fans, who flocked to Twitter (now X) posts, Instagram Lives and songs in search of supposed subliminals about the next man up.

Whatever happened between them before Von's death seems to be the kind of one-upmanship that rappers grow out of and see as youthful selfishness. Legendary rapper 50 Cent had a heated conflict with Fat Joe that seemed to be on the verge of violence, but they were able to quell it and the two now seem to be pretty close friends. He said in February last year Rolling Stone This maturity made him realize that he was sorry for attacking Joe like that. He also said that he realized what was going on between Durk and YoungBoy. “The things they come from make them do that. All your experience is in the music.”

50 has many parallels to both men. His upbringing in Southside Queens was an attraction to many of his fans. Gangster rap pioneer Ice T called 50 “the last gangster rapper” and told Soren Baker that he “believed” in it. Get rich or die trying Artist. “I think a real gangsta rapper has to scare you a little bit. I don't think there aren't new people doing that,” Ice T said. But in 2024, there's no long-term incentive for fear to be an artist's main attraction. The fans lurking on Reddit pages and watching Trap Lore Ross videos want to see artists figuratively walking a tightrope between art and reality. You want to feel like Durk's tactics for attacking enemies revolve around a specific person. And if an artist inevitably slips and falls while walking the tightrope, it's entirely their fault. They're “stupid” for wasting their chance, even though much of drill rap's appeal comes from the authenticity its fans seek. It's a no-win paradox.

Drill rap is a dead end that artists no longer have to go down. This is not a statement about the artistic merit of these scenes; The scene gave us geniuses like Durk, Chief Keef, G Herbo, Sheff G, Pop Smoke, and artists like Cash Cobain and Ice Spice cultivated the fun, Cobain-inflected offshoot of sexy-drill. But the drill scenes as a whole have become too corrupted by criminalization. There are too many fans who stare at rappers as racist, hypermasculine caricatures without considering the anti-Blackness of demanding artists live their raps at the expense of their lives or freedom. There are too many “media personalities” who have no respect for hip-hop as an art form and make millions by insensitively feeding these fans their dose of black nihilism. And now more than ever, there are too many district attorneys who can't wait to implicate artists in their next gang case. Drill rap has become a blot on hip-hop, not because of the artists, but because of the people who don't consider it art. These are the people drill artists try to inspire to their own detriment.

Much of the street violence comes from people protecting their reputations, and unfortunately drill music is so inextricably linked to gang violence that this dynamic has spilled over into the fan base. The music has been reduced to a soundtrack to the nationwide gang violence that is decimating a generation of black and brown youth. And instead of this fact raising alarm, it has become a conversation that artists feel compelled to play along with. On “Wonderful Wayne and Jackie Boy,” Durk rapped, “I don't care about the net that's been feeding shit for the years,” but still occasionally played with fire just to let people know who he was. That's why Durk's texts following Von's death have left a trail of damning intimations of retribution that could find their way into the courtroom. That's why, after Pab's death, he included Quando's screams in a song and cheekily told DJ Akademiks that he stopped seeing “Slide for Von” comments on his Instagram “for some strange reason.” His perception doesn't just depend on good music. He feeds his fans' desire to believe him. But at this point, after two young men allegedly died behind nonsense, it's worth asking how much “credibility” Black Lives hip-hop is still worth.

These fans didn't force Durk to do what he said he did; He is a grown man with autonomy. But the five-year dispute is a glimpse into a rap subculture choking on its own bloodlust. In September 2022, Quando told Rolling Stone that “I think about changing all the time but he” can't change because people don't want a nigga to change. It's like respect and my rep that goes when a nigga changes.” The rap fans who support Quando are part of this tribe. They like him not just because he makes good music, but because they think he's a gangster who makes good music.

Elsewhere in the interview, Quando noted, “Niggas lead violent lives. Nothing can be changed about that. Anyone could say, 'You could change…' It's over with big brother, the nigga is too far gone.” He seemingly saw no way out. In 2020, Durk rapped: “You ask me where I'll be in ten years, shit, I said 'The government.'” Both men appear to have resigned themselves to a terrible fate prepared for them by a country that that let her down. The fans viewed the dispute between OTF and Youngboy like a sporting rivalry, but in the end only the system won. Even if they were to physically escape their home environment, they would not be able to do so mentally. And the voyeuristic fans who watched them martyrdom didn't want that.