Latest news with #drillmusic
Times
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Gang killed two in estate rampage after drill rap video shoot
A leader of a gang fictionalised in Andrew O'Hagan's celebrated novel Caledonian Road has been convicted of two murders which were committed after the filming of a music video. Lorik Lupqi and four other gang members were convicted at the Old Bailey on Wednesday of two murders and the attempted murder of another man when they went on the rampage on the Elthorne estate in Islington, north London, in June 2023. Earlier that day the drill rapper Tight Road Baby had shot a drill music video on the estate and the men believed it had featured rival gang members. They fatally stabbed Leonardo Reid, 15, and Shekaj Klevi, 23, despite them having no connection to a rival gang. Lupqi, now 21, and Jason Furtado, 28, were responsible for 'calling on' the violence. They organised a taxi to pick up Xavier Poponne, 22; Abel Chunda, 29; and Eden Clark, 30, to take them to the attack.
The Guardian
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
OneFour on prison, police and their long-awaited debut: ‘We wouldn't be who we are today if we didn't go through that'
As evidence of what's changed for the Australian hip-hop act OneFour, the group's Jerome 'J Emz' Misa points to the blue sky behind him. 'Right now I'm going for a midday walk – I never used to do this back in the days!' the rapper laughs, his Zoom screen shaky as he puffs through the streets of western Sydney. 'Physically and mentally, I feel like there's been a lot of positive changes.' For one, while OneFour made their name as the first in Australia to embrace drill, a Chicago-born genre that tells often-nihilistic tales of street violence, J Emz no longer identifies as a driller. 'I'm an artist and a musician – and [my music] comes from that perspective,' he says. The group, who grew up together in Mount Druitt, were teenagers when they first started making music in a local youth centre. They're now in their mid-to-late-20s and have had 'a lot of time to reflect' on where young adulthood in one of Sydney's most disadvantaged postcodes took them. 'If you're Polynesian, you grow up in church, and you have certain principles and morals that you live by, that you're taught by parents,' J Emz says. 'But what we all had to go through in the street went against those principles or morals.' What they went through has been well documented. In 2019, the same year the group enjoyed breakthrough success with their single The Message, OneFour hit two major setbacks. First, three of the group's members were jailed over a violent pub brawl. Second, their lyrics were taken by New South Wales police as evidence the group were engaged in gang warfare. Strike Force Raptor, a specialised police squad created to tackle outlaw motorcycle gangs, made it their mission to stop OneFour from ever performing in Sydney – and have, so far, more or less succeeded. Despite the group's repeated denials of involvement in gang violence, the police have cancelled their tours, barred them from entering the Aria awards on the night they were nominated, and arrived with metal detectors and undercover officers to the premiere of their 2023 Netflix documentary. What should have been the start of a brilliant career sputtered and stalled, and maintaining momentum has been an issue. But it hasn't stopped them becoming heroes. As local hip-hop manager and tastemaker Christopher Kevin Au puts it: 'With OneFour, people are buying into much more than the music – they're attached to the story. The trajectory of OneFour has seen them become the ultimate underdog tale.' Now, OneFour are chewing over their journey on their long delayed debut album, Look At Me Now. 'The album is based on a story of overcoming the obstacles that we've had to experience, growing from the people we were when we first started making music to the people we are today,' J Emz says. 'Look at us now – and look at where we are with our careers now.' Today, OneFour are arguably the biggest act in Australian hip-hop (bar their friend and collaborator the Kid Laroi), with several multi-platinum singles to their name. While they have always been proudly independent, the group recently struck a distribution deal with Sony Music subsidiary The Orchard, lending them more institutional backing than they've ever had. It's at Sony's Sydney office that I meet three of the band's four core members for an initial group interview: J Emz, Dahcell 'Celly' Ramos and Spencer 'Spenny' Magalog. There have been some lineup shifts in recent years. As of 2023, all members of the band are now out of prison, though Salec 'Lekks' Su'a, who was born in Samoa but holds New Zealand citizenship, was deported to New Zealand after finishing his sentence. Last year the group's longtime manager stepped down from his role, and original member Pio 'YP' Misa (younger brother of J Emz) left to join the priesthood, a decision he discussed in a tearful Nine News interview. A condition of this interview was that YP's departure not be discussed, and with some awkward topics to skirt around, there is sometimes a stiffness in our conversation. But one thing the group is happy to talk about is the album. Look At Me Now packs plenty that will feel familiar to OneFour fans – eshay slang, gunshot samples, quintessentially Australian references to Coles, Penrith Panthers and Honda Civics, and pithy lines like 'They put money on our heads / We call that shit an op shop' (a reference to a recent alleged murder plot). But there's also a new introspection to many of the tracks. 'We show a different side of ourselves – we get a bit vulnerable,' J Emz says. That includes Phone Call, the group's first love song, featuring the R&B singer Mabel. But other tracks tackle big topics like the environments that raise us, how easy it can be to get caught up in the system, and what it means to pull yourself out of one sort of life and into another. There are bars about the young kids let down by our schools and the friends who've been sucked in by drugs and landed in prison. On the album opener Change, J Emz implores young listeners to learn from his mistakes; elsewhere, Spenny raps about waking up in cold sweats from the memories of things he's done. J Emz says he doesn't want to be a role model for anyone ('I don't want that spotlight'), but he's aware there is a younger generation who look up to OneFour, not just as hitmakers but as representatives of Mount Druitt and Pasifika people on the world stage. When I talked to fellow Mount Druitt hip-hop act Kapulet in 2020, he described the group's influence on the young people of their neighbourhood: 'Before, everyone used to want to be footy players. Now everyone wants to be a musician.' 'We know our music goes a long way, and it reaches a lot of people,' says J Emz. 'So when it came to the album itself, I feel like it is the right thing to do … to be that positive role model.' OneFour say the album is 'for those who want more' from life, and hope it motivates their listeners. They're disappointed they won't get to share it live with fans in their home town; while the group is set to visit the rest of the country as part of their album tour, a Sydney show still isn't possible: 'We've tried,' J Emz says. Instead, the group staged a listening party at a secret location in western Sydney on Thursday, where the album was played over a soundsystem. To date, the only times they've been able to perform in their home city are in festivals or supporting act slots. In their war against OneFour, NSW police have often hit venues hosting the band with prohibitive user-pays police bills that effectively force the gig's cancellation. Guardian Australia understands that the group's Sydney show with the Kid Laroi in November only went ahead after the payment of a six-figure police bill, funding several riot squads, horseback patrols, plus police at the perimeter of the show and at Parramatta station. In fact, across a seven-year career, OneFour have only played about 20 shows – a number any other artist would do within six months of an album tour. The official police line is that they fear 'antisocial behaviour' should OneFour be allowed to perform, which is exasperating for the band. 'We haven't had any major incidents involved with our shows,' says J Emz. 'Everything's gone safely. It's tough when you've been doing it for years, and it's just a matter of them [the police] just letting go of whatever they got against us.' It doesn't feel coincidental that this extraordinary level of police intervention has been exercised against a group of Pasifika men; for their part, NSW police have described their own actions as 'lawfully harassing' the band. When I ask the usually chatty J Emz if it feels like discrimination, he has only one word in answer, which arrives to the awkward laughter of his bandmates: 'Yes.' But OneFour are surprisingly positive about what they have gone through and what's to come. 'We wouldn't be who we are today if we didn't go through that stuff, if it was just a walk in the park,' says J Emz. 'I feel like that's why people resonate with our music and find it so authentic.' OneFour are, J Emz feels, 'a living example of what's possible with music'. Spenny agrees: 'Without music I would have ended up on a different path, a whole different lifestyle … music for me, changed me – and basically saved my life.' Now, he just wants people – and the police – to understand what most other artists don't have to spell out: 'We're musicians. We love our craft, and we're just trying to get our story out to the world.' Look At Me Now is out 13 June (Sony Music). OneFour are touring Australia from 21 June.
BBC News
03-06-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Rolls-Royce rap video lured children in Nottingham into drugs network
Twelve drug dealers have been jailed for running an "industrial" supply network that flooded heroin and crack cocaine into towns across the East Midlands and Nottingham-based ringleaders sprayed champagne from a white Rolls-Royce, in one of several "drill" music videos that boasted about their weapons and Crown Court heard how they protected their turf with knives, a loaded pistol, and bombarded drug users with marketing also set up local distribution hubs at addicts' homes and recruited children to move and sell their drugs, to reduce the risk of getting caught. The video in a hired Rolls-Royce shows more than 20 young men posing at familiar locations around St Ann's in Nottingham, their faces covered with black features 22-year-old Godpraise Bouwen rapping about "junkies asking for testers", and defending his turf with weapons. Bouwen had previous convictions for robbery and knife offences. PC Ryan Millington, who led the investigation for Nottinghamshire Police, says the lyrics and images were designed to recruit young drug dealers."Stacks of cash. Rolex watches. It makes it very easy for young people to become indoctrinated in that lifestyle," he said. PC Millington says other lyrics, found in their phone notes, were evidence that helped prove their involvement."I'd be able to see the lyrics were written within hours after a police stop, where they were talking about that exact thing, and making reference to hiding drugs from us," he treated teenagers, who were sent to sell their drugs in surrounding towns, as victims of exploitation. PC Millington says they included a 15 year old who was driven to Mansfield."He would stay at a drug user's house to deal from," he said. "That boy would be armed with a knife. They would do this because the young people have no criminal connection back to them." Their network was headed by Jephte Fikula, who had the loaded pistol, and Sipho Ncube, the man spraying Dom Perignon champagne from a Rolls-Royce in their music investigation began after officers caught Ncube running away from a car crash in September found vital evidence on a mobile phone that he tried to throw away - it was the group's Coalville drugs Ncube's home, they seized a Rolex watch worth between £11,750 and £14,550, alongside hand-written notes about how dealing drugs could earn him up to £20,000 a week. What are county lines? County lines are a lucrative drug-dealing model that criminal networks use to expand their customer base across different areas within the UK. The National Police Chiefs Council says gangs often coerce or intimidate children and vulnerable adults into moving and storing their drugs and NSPCC adds county lines gangs aim to evade the police by using sophisticated "grooming" techniques that are "a form of child abuse".The National Crime Agency says the county line is the mobile phone line used to take orders, and it causes "increased levels of violence and weapons-related crimes". The investigation in Nottingham focussed on 13 separate county lines that also supplied heroin and crack to Long Eaton, Ilkeston, Ripley, Sutton-in-Ashfield, Hucknall, Grantham and Spalding. Officers identified over 33,000 "bulk marketing" messages that advertised drugs to more than 1,400 customer numbers, and over 113,000 incoming calls in Cox, prosecuting, described it as an "industrial scale" operation that tried to dominate the class-A drugs market and also sought to target Cox said the group tempted vulnerable people who were "gripped by addiction" and they were "shameless in their dealing". PC Millington said two drug users in Coalville and Mansfield allowed the group to use their homes to store and deal drugs. He said Kevin Wilde and Jeanette Talbot were given free heroin and cocaine as payment, and the impact on those communities was huge."People living in the area will see the effects, people who are homeless or in a poor state of health because of drug use, teenagers who will be sent to these places often armed with a weapon," he residents in Coalville told the BBC that hard drugs were widespread in the town and blamed that trade for shoplifting. His Hon Judge Mark Watson said Talbot was a "hapless addict" whose home was cuckooed and who was the victim of her deferred her sentencing for six months to allow her to demonstrate further progress in tackling her drug failed to appear for his sentencing, and the court heard that attempts have been made to arrest other twelve defendants have received sentences of between six and 21 judge said they were involved in "street dealing of vast proportions", selling highly addictive and dangerous drugs that ruined lives. Jephte Fikula, 29, of no fixed abode (formerly Nottingham). Sentenced to 21 years for conspiracy to supply class A drugs, possession of a firearm and ammunition with intent to endanger life, possess of ammunition without a certificate, possession of an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of Campbell, 28, of Rose Close, Nottingham. Sentenced to 16 years for conspiracy to supply class A drugs, possession of a prohibited firearm and ammunition, breach of a restraining Ncube, 29, of Harvington Road, Birmingham (formerly Ebury Road, Nottingham). Sentenced to 15 years for conspiracy to supply class A Bouwen, 22, of Astor Road, Nottingham. Sentenced to 15 years for conspiracy to supply class A drugs. Kamel Mantock, 28, of Wasnidge Walk, Nottingham. Sentenced to six years and four months for conspiracy to supply class A Grant, 26, of Blue Bell Hill Road, Nottingham. Sentenced to nine years and six months for conspiracy to supply class A Comrie-Patterson, 28, of Blue Bell Hill Road, Nottingham. Sentenced to nine years and 11 months for conspiracy to supply class A Kanyi, 25, of Botany Avenue, Nottingham. Sentenced to seven years and 9 months for conspiracy to supply class A Reid, 25, of Riber Crescent, Nottingham. Sentenced to six years and nine months for conspiracy to supply class A Farah, 21, of Peveril Street, Nottingham. Sentenced to six years and 11 months for conspiracy to supply class A Fogo, 20, of no fixed abode (formerly Nottingham). Sentenced to eight years youth detention for conspiracy to supply class A drugs and possession of a bladed Landau, 24, of Collmead Court, Northampton (formerly Alfreton Road, Nottingham). Sentenced to eight years and three months for conspiracy to supply class A drugs.
Daily Mail
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Britain's 'most hated drill rapper' is hauled to court AGAIN from his prison cell after driving his £200,000 Lamborghini without insurance near Piccadilly Circus
A drill star dubbed the most 'hated rapper in London' has been convicted of driving a £200,000-plus Lamborghini without insurance close to Piccadilly Circus, MailOnline can reveal. Digga D was prosecuted over the incident in 2023 while languishing in HMP Brixton where he is currently serving more than three years for drugs offences. The 24-year-old star, whose birth name is Rhys Herbert, has been convicted of driving the supercar without insurance on Piccadilly in the West End of London in October 2023. Piccadilly Circus is where he has filmed his music videos in the past, once shutting it down when he was mobbed by fans who scaled the world-famous statue of Eros. He faces an unlimited fine and a potential driving ban, according to court documents, and may even appear at Bexley Magistrates' Court from his London jail via video link when he is sentenced. Digga D is currently serving time for importing and dealing close to 50kg of cannabis. He was arrested last year and lives-streamed the moment armed police crashed into his home. Digga, as he is called by his fans, has multiple convictions for gang-related crime and drugs with friends claiming he had earned up to £3million from rapping before he was jailed four months ago. He told a court last year that he began smoking drugs aged 12. His use of rap songs and videos to goad rivals and glorify violence has seen him dubbed 'London's most hated rapper' online due to the number of enemies he has. Herbert, from west London, was even subject to a ultra-rare police order that controls his musical output because it was linked to violence. On one occasion he was almost blinded when stabbed in the eye by a rival during a previous spell in jail for a machete attack. On another occasion someone tried to kill him by opening fire on him in his car, MailOnline understands. In January this year Digga D was jailed for three years and 11 months for selling 45 kilos of cannabis after helping import the illegal drug from the US. He was arrested after police launched a raid on his property in Bracebridge Heath near Lincoln in the early hours of February 21 last year - while he was broadcasting live on Instagram . He pleaded guilty last May to importing 3.6 kilos of cannabis in June and July 2023 and a further charge of supplying cannabis. At his sentencing in January Judge Simon Hirst decided on the level of Herbert's drug dealing after hearing two days of evidence, because the prosecution did not accept the basis of his pleas. Judge Hirst said he was satisfied Herbert had played a significant role in selling cannabis for a commercial profit and jailed him for just under four years. Digga can be heard shouting: 'What do you lot want, I'm here! I am here! Stop! What are you lot doing?' with the sound of smashing glass in the background The court heard Herbert had six previous convictions for 13 offences, including possessing an offensive weapon and violent disorder for which he was sentenced to 30 months youth detention in March 2020. Herbert told a previous hearing that he began smoking cannabis from the age of 12 and used the drug throughout his teenage years to "help with his frequent migraines". He claimed it was 'a benefit' to buy his cannabis in bulk as he could afford it and it proved cheaper. The musician said buying in bulk also reduced the chance of him coming to the attention of the police as he was often stopped both in London and elsewhere in the country. He said he also obtained bags of cannabis to use in the video for his hit song I'm From. Mobile phone footage of the star handling a bag of cannabis and allegedly complaining about the poor quality was also played in court. A number of photographs also showed Herbert handling large amounts of cash, the court was told. His criminal past goes back to his teenage years. He last left prison in May 2020 after being sentenced to two and a half years for his part in a machete brawl in front of shoppers in central London. Digga D (pictured centre) invited his fan base to join him in Piccadilly Circus in London when he filmed a new music video in 2023. It was nearby where he was caught driving the Lamborghini Anti-knife campaigners also criticised the BBC for producing a documentary about a violent rapper in which he complains about his struggle to make music that glorifies gang attacks. BBC promotional material for the programme at the time stated: 'Police say they target drill because it promotes and causes violence, but the genre's supporters call this censorship and say that the art simply reflects real life. Digga's situation, and his ongoing story, embodies this dilemma. A Metropolitan Police order even banned him rapping about rivals or specific attacks, although he can refer to violence generally. His supporters said he was being censored. But he had hidden apparent coded references to attacks in songs, and the name of his group, The Conspiracy Gang Members, is thought to be a 'tribute' to members of his 1011 drill gang arrested in 2018 on their way to attack rivals. In 2018 five members of the 1011 gang, including Digga D, were jailed and banned from making violent videos after they were caught with machetes and baseball bats on the way to attack a rival gang in 2017. They had got in a black car and drove towards the postcode area of their rival's, the '12 World Gang' from Shepherd's Bush, intent on revenge. But police swooped and found they were carrying deadly weapons. A judge banned the five young men from mentioning death or injury in their songs or on social media and ordered them to inform police before they record or perform songs. In 2019 cyber criminals broke into the Metropolitan Police Twitter account and posted tweets calling for the release of Digga D from jail. In a now-deleted tweet the hackers wrote: 'FREE DIGGA D ON FOENEM GANG.' The account, which is normally only used to update the public on ongoing policing matters, had posted tweets that said: ''F*** the police' and 'What you gonna do ... phone the police?' In one video viewed nearly three million times, on YouTube Digga D boasted about having to bleach his knife after using it to attack someone. His songs are also explicit about sex as well as gang rivalries in London.
