Last week, New York City Mayor Eric Adams claimed he had plans to put a ban on drill music, the rapidly growing music scene popularized by New York City artists, that the Mayor credits for the city’s rapid rise in gun violence in recent history. 

Adams, a former NYPD officer, told a group of reporters that his son, a Roc Nation employee, showed him some drill music videos, and he was “alarmed” by the violent subject matter and gang references in the songs. He was so distraught that he announced plans to ask social media platforms to ban videos, speaking to their supposed “civic and corporate responsibility” to censor art. 

“We pulled Trump off Twitter because of what he was spewing. Yet we are allowing music [with the] displaying of guns, violence. We allow this to stay on the sites,” Adams said. Unsurprisingly, he omitted any reference to alleviating the social factors that cause the violence depicted in the drill scene. 

New York City’s drill scene has been controversial, to say the least. Its biggest star, Pop Smoke, lost his life due to gun violence in 2020. Many of its brightest stars, such as Sheff G and Kay Flock, are currently incarcerated. Hot 97’s DJ Drewski, a huge advocate for the drill scene, reacted to the gun violence by ceasing to play violent diss records, contributing to the ongoing gang war, which has taken the lives of many drill rappers in the past several years. 

Adams’ comments come after the death of Chii Wvtts, aka Jayquan McKenley, an 18-year-old Bronx rapper who was killed in Brooklyn earlier this month. During his speech, Adams said, “I didn’t know Jayquan, but his death hit me hard because the more I found out about Jayquan’s story, the more I saw how many times he had been failed by a system that is supposed to help boys like him.” He was tearful during his speech, indicating genuine concern for the loss of another young life. 

During his speech, Adams blamed drill rap and music videos for the ongoing street violence in New York City, saying the music is  “causing the loss of lives of young people like them.”  He also said he was “alarmed by the use of social media to really over-proliferate this violence in our communities. This is contributing to the violence that we are seeing all over the country. It’s one of the rivers we have to dam.”

What do you think about Mayor Eric Adam’s sentiments about drill music’s relationship with New York City street violence? Stay tune for updates on this and other hip-hop news.