After a mass deletion of drill music videos from YouTube, they’ve now resurfaced on Pornhub instead.
In recent news, drill music has been accused of inciting violence, with The Metropolitan Police claiming that they’re responsible for rising levels of knife crime and gang warfare in London.
As part of the government crackdown on the genre, in May, YouTube removed over 30 drill videos. The removal came at the behest of Metropolitan police commissioner Cressida Dick. In a statement detailing the motives behind the action, Dick stated: “Drill music is associated with lyrics which are about glamourising serious violence. They describe the stabbings in great detail, joy and excitement.”
Now, the videos have been posted to Pornhub, including music visuals from group 1011, who were recently sentenced to jail after pleading guilty to an armed attack against a rival gang in Shepherd’s Bush. After their trial, the police applied for a court order to ban the group from making drill music in the future. The order has been approved, and the artists now have to obtain police permission to make music and videos. Furthermore, the group are banned from mentioning death or injury in any tracks.
During the trial, Wiley offered to take one of the members, aged 17, under his wing.
Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive of campaign group Index on Censorship condemned the court order. “Banning a kind of music is not the way to handle ideas or opinions that are distasteful or disturbing.”
“This isn’t going to address the issues that lead to the creation of this kind of music, nor should we be creating a precedent in which certain forms of art which include violent images or ideas are banned.”
She added, “We need to tackle actual violence, not ideas and opinions.”