Drill rap music has become the kerosene fuelling London's gang warfare… so why is it being advertised on the capital's buses and lauded on the BBC, asks Harriet Sergeant

In August, 2019, residents of Munster Square, a stone's throw from London's Regent's Park, were disturbed by desperate banging on their front doors in the dead of night. Alex Smith, a 16-year-old boy with a shock of brown hair, was running from house to house, pleading: 'Help me, help me!'

There followed pounding footsteps, screams, laughter and, finally, silence. When a terrified resident plucked up the courage to go outside, they found the teenager dying in a pool of blood on their doorstep.

Alex was murdered by six members of the Agar Grove gang. His crime? To belong to a Camden rival. His killers were all in their 20s. It is hard to comprehend six grown men chasing one boy down the grand boulevards of North London with a foot-long machete.

But, as horrific as the image is, it has become commonplace in the city under Mayor Sadiq Khan. As the Mail has established in the previous two instalments of this four-part series into knife crime, the capital is living under the tyranny of the blade.

But, here, I will examine the kerosene behind the crime, the fuel that makes gang violence burn more fiercely. Many hands have been wrung on the supposed causes of knife attacks – poverty, school attendance, male role models, the drug trade – but, while the picture is undoubtedly complex, little attention is given to drill music.

This is the nihilistic genre of urban rap that glorifies gang violence.

To celebrate their killing of Alex Smith, Siyad Mohamud, 24, and Tariq Monteiro, 23, composed and posted online a drill rap with sickening lyrics: 'You do the chest, Imma deal with the heady. Let's hope that we put him on the telly. Camden Town where bodies are dropping.'

The two thugs fled to Kenya from where they were eventually extradited and given life sentences along with two accomplices. Two further gang members bolted for Somalia and vanished.

Alex's heart-broken mother said: 'Not in a million years would I expect six people and two cars [to be] involved in the death of my son. I can't get out of my mind how my son was hunted by a pack.'

Judge Sarah Munro KC said at the trial: 'This is the third case I have had to pass a life sentence for murder this week alone.

'It is hard for those who don't sit in these courts day to day to understand how young people in their teens find themselves embroiled in gang culture.'

Monteiro, meanwhile, is still posting on social media, from his prison cell. He has an Instagram account which features pictures of him posing in designer clothes, still trading on his popularity as a drill rapper, eliciting compliments and heart emojis.

For in the world of drill, a criminal sentence is hardly an impediment to success. It is the beat to which London's gang culture marches and has turned murder into a money-making industry.

Understand it and you understand why the numbers of young people dying in the capital are soaring – and will continue to do so. And how far Sadiq Khan is from confronting the problem, never mind finding solutions.

Drill rappers are gang members who chronicle drug abuse, violence and gang activities in their communities. Young boys, often with single mothers and desperate for male role models, are seduced by its caricature of aggressive masculinity.

Drill artists rap about events as they take place on the estate and streets where the boys live. Social media site Snapchat allows them to instantly respond – both online and in person.

One former gang member told the Mail that he is so worried about his son's exposure to drill music that he has confiscated his phone. 'Most parents hesitate to go into the bedrooms of their children, so have no idea what their teenager sons do online,' he said, wanting a better life for his 11-year-old son, away from the kind of violence that scarred his childhood.

The moment they wake, young boys are on to Snapchat for the latest updates as to who had been 'slipping' (caught off guard by a gang attack), was 'cheffed' (stabbed with a blade more commonly used in restaurants for gutting fish) or 'rushed' (beaten up) the night before.

Snapchat posts reveal the location of rivals in real time. Monteiro had caught Alex coming out of Nando's on London's Euston Road and called fellow gang members to hunt him down. Gossip spreads fast on social media with gangs and individual rappers gaining or losing credibility by how they handle confrontations.

The music is powered by violence. As Monteiro ominously warned: 'I wanna see blood like the red bandana/ You'll end on the floor/ You can get hit with the corn [gun] or sword/ Either way, still get sent to the Lord.'

A rapper and his gang will use the site to issue threats to a rival gang, which wins views and comments. The other gang retaliates, 'and the beef is on' – as one fan casually remarked, as if talking about a football match. Only, this sport counts its wins in dead and mutilated bodies.

Drill music, says the conservative think-tank Policy Exchange in its report Knife Crime In The Capital, played a role in at least a third of gang-related homicides in 2019. Since then, drill has exploded in popularity. Teenagers described to me how it articulated the rage and frustration they experienced during lockdown.

But the shocking truth is that many drill artists are not just rapping about violence, they are glorifying, perpetuating and even profiting from it. A 16-year-old dying in an obscure London square, whimpering for his mum, is the cornerstone of a lucrative, music industry both here and in the States.

'Authenticity' is the cause of the explosion in crime. Rappers gain music deals and brand endorsements only as long as they are 'active on the road'. As one gangster explained to me: 'You can't just eat off this if you are not authentic.'

A rapper needs to continually prove his credibility with displays of violence. Duck a challenge and he loses not just respect but also earnings. This was the motive behind Alex Smith's murder. His killer, Tariq Monteiro, was a drill rapper who had been stabbed by a member of Alex's gang. 

If Monteiro had not retaliated, he would have been dismissed as 'wet on the streets'. It was not enough to kill Alex. Monteiro had to glory in the slaying, bragging: 'Ever changed man down 'til he nearly vomit?'

The gamble paid off. Once news of Alex's murder got around, Monteiro's 'mixtape' or collection of raps received an astonishing 3.6 million views. The reward for such figures could be tens of thousands of pounds because, depending on who you are, YouTube can pay as much as £14 per 1,000 advert views. 

Drill artists also make money from advertising on other social networks. Many of those views came from fans in the US, fascinated by the London drill scene.

In his red T-shirt, huge earphones perched on top of his head, the American YouTuber, Xavi Got Bandz, guides his audience through gang feuds in such exotic places as Camden and Walthamstow. 'OMG!' he gushes over yet another tit-for-tat stabbing, 'I thought you lot were only using knives to eat crumpets.' International attention only puts more pressure on young Londoners to resort to violence.

We are losing boys to this deadly culture from a young age. Ten-year-olds aspire to be a drill rapper – with all the crime and savagery that entails – and judge it a legitimate career path. And they are right. Boys see their favourite drill artist advertised on the side of the bus they catch to school.

They see them making fortunes representing clothing shops like JD Sports or video games such as Call of Duty. They are even on the BBC, where they are gushed over for their 'gritty' depiction of life on the streets and its hardships.

The message we are sending young boys is clear. With rewards like these, it is worth risking a stabbing – or stabbing someone yourself.

To understand the peril of this mixed messaging, look at the trajectory of one hero of the drill scene. Thirty-year-old Irving Ampofo Adjei, known as Headie One, grew up on the Broadwater Farm housing estate in Tottenham in North London. 

A series of underground hits led to a contract with Sony and praise from The Times, whose music reviewer described him as 'the breakout star of drill' when his debut album topped the UK charts in October 2020.

Reputedly worth £2million, this week he released his new single, a collaboration with multiple Brit Award winner Stormzy. This mainstream success runs alongside an active criminal career. No repentance from Headie One who was imprisoned three times for dealing crack cocaine and heroin.

He pursued the all important 'beef' with rivals delighting his fans with 'diss' tracks. The prospect of violence was so real, the Met shut down his concert in the Barbican Centre in 2018.

'Only a fool would say that drill music is the root of the problem of violence in the capital,' intoned Headie One. The following year, just days before he was due to play Glastonbury, he was charged with possession of a lock knife and obstructing police after being stopped and searched in Tottenham, and imprisoned a fourth time.

In drill there's no profit without bloodshed as even Sony eventually discovered. Staff at the firm's state-of-the-art headquarters in London were left terrified when a brawl broke out in the canteen between Headie One and a rival rapper in November 2022. Employees ran or hid under tables as blood and food spattered around them and the fight spilled out on to the street.

A witness said: 'It was one of the most frightening experiences of my life. You don't expect to go to work and to be dragged into something like this. These two people clearly hate one another but for it to take place while you're eating your lunch was shocking.'

Tell that to the wannabe Headie Ones who have paid the price with their lives.

As a phenomenon that is so intrinsic to knife crime in London, many are frustrated that drill music has been given such an easy ride by Khan. Questions were raised when a JD Sports advert featuring a drill artist was displayed on a London double-decker in January.

That the lyrics of rapper Central Cee don't feature anything more violent that drug-taking and knife carrying is beside the point. He is part of an industry that revels in youth crime.

Instead of using it to swell Transport for London coffers, Sadiq Khan should denounce drill music and all companies complicit in its promotion during every interview he gives.

He should be pushing for an outright ban on smartphones for under-16s, too, or at least the social media apps they carry, as these are the handheld windows through which impressionable boys view gang feuds in real time.

Of course, these issues are bigger than one politician. As a society, we need to re-examine how we raise boys. Male role models are important, as is the wider community structure, exemplified in well-run schools and fully-funded youth clubs. But Khan has favoured bloating the third sector to fund social projects while hobbling the Met's ability to 'stop and search' with disastrous effect.

But all the while the Mayor fails to get to grips with this era-defining crime, the bodies of teenagers pile up in the capital's A&Es.

A nurse who works in a trauma unit in central London told the Mail that she treats stab victims every day – her youngest patient was 12.

'Some of the injured boys that come in are so tiny,' she says. 'They're 15 but look like my ten-year-old. They're still agitated, adrenaline surging and they try to push us away. They've just been attacked. We have to move fast but anyone coming at them at an angle is obviously going to trigger them. Many don't want to worry their mum. 'She's picking my sister up from school,' they say.

'Some of them are just furious and can't let go of the fact they're furious. But then you see a shift in the sicker ones. The brain isn't getting enough oxygen. We are having to work faster and faster. But they know. You read it in their frightened eyes. Half an hour ago they were boys – now they are staring death in the face.'