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This new album is Headie One’s first solo record in three years, and follows ‘Too Loyal for My Own Good’, released in 2021. Since then, he has released two albums in collaboration with other artists, ‘No Borders: European Compilation Project’ with artists such as Gazo, Luciano, Shiva, and Hamza, alongside ‘STRENGTH TO STRENGTH’, which he produced with K-trap.

Recently, Headie One released a sneak peek of the upcoming album, as he released ‘Tipsy’, featuring Aitch. So far, he has also released three other songs from his new album, including: ‘Martin’s Sofa’, ‘I Still Know Better’, and ‘Cry No More’ featuring Stormzy and Tay Keith. The anticipation for his new album is consistently rising, as he also released a music video for ‘Tipsy’, which you can watch below.

In addition to his new album, he also recently announced a European and his first ever Australian tour, that will take him to Gold Coast, Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Manchester, Dublin, Glasgow, London, Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Paris, Antwerp, Cologne, Frankfert, Munich, Berlin, and Zurich this October and November, and next February and March. You can find tickets here.

His new album, is set to be an exciting one, as his 2020 album, ‘EDNA’, made history as it was the first drill album to top the UK charts, leaving the possibilities for his new album endless. The success of his music has lead to Headie One being considered a pioneer of UK drill music, and he is part of OFB, that stands for Original Farmer Boys and is a group made up of prominent drill artists from Tottenham, such as Bandokay, and Double Lz.

When talking to NME about his new album, he assured fans that “it’s the last one but it’s not the last one you know?”, so they can rest assured that the album’s name does not reflect the end of his career. He also told NME that “this album is about the place we come from, the negative things that happened and that are still in effect today so I’m giving a lot of home truths in this one”, exciting fans with the intimacy of his new album, which you can pre-order here. If you pre-order the album by 4pm on the 26th June, then you will have the opportunity to enter a competition to watch Headie One from backstage at Glastonbury Festival on Friday 28th June with a plus one.

Despite its disuse in the courtroom as of yet, limits have been placed on the musical freedoms of drill artists, where Digga D among other rappers were under a CBO order that required them to submit lyrics to the police before their release. But now, the community is fighting back.

Civil liberty campaigners and activists alike have now pushed the CPS to perform a “listening exercise” to unpack how trials can be unfairly affected by drill lyrics, as well as stereotypes around Black men. Nick Federici, a youth worker at the Pythian Club, told the BBC that drill is misunderstood as a cause of violence: “Drill is just the youth expressing themselves,” he said. “Drill doesn’t cause crime in deprived areas. It’s poverty, it’s envy, it’s so many other things going on, underlying issues.”

While drill may not directly caused violence itself in his belief, Federici acknowledges that drill may accelerate the occurance of inevitable violence: “Obviously if somebody gets on a song and calls my name out and tells me this and that, it’s going to provoke me,” he said.

Eithne Quinn is an academic from the University of Manchester, who has been a rap expert in court cases for a number of years. Her take is that “any new guidance to prosecutors that restricts the flow of rap into our courtrooms will be very welcome.

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As you can see, there are no features yet disclosed on the tracklist. It is unclear whether or not the feature list will be revealed closer to the time of release, or on release, or whether DigDat is ambitiously pursuing the path of no features. Typically, when UK artists rise to prominence, they recruit big-name features to promote a leading single from an album. Stormzy has been the feature artist of choice, featuring on Loski’s, Headie One’s, Dave’s and Ghetts’ recent albums in the last year or so.

On DigDat’s last album, Ei8ht Mile he was not without the help of other notable UK artists, including Aitch, Headie One, K-Trap and D-Block Europe. In fact, there were only 5 songs on the thirteen-track album wherein DigDat appeared unaccompanied, including the Intro and Outro tracks on the album. Dropping a drill album with no features would be a welcome yet ambitious departure from what fans have become accustomed to with DigDat and the genre at large.

Dropped in 2020, Ei8ht Mile was a massive success, with each track generating over a million in streams, and one track, the eponymous ‘Ei8th Mile’ featuring Manchester-born rapper Aitch, nearing the dizzy heights of his biggest single ‘Air Force’. Far from a one-hit wonder, DigDat has established himself as a major player in the genre. Consistently releasing singles and projects for the last four year, he has kept up his workrate to a high level. Releasing four singles and an album in 2020 wouldn’t sound that impressive if his tracks weren’t consistently making waves; one should expect Pain Built to maintain this impact he has on the scene.

DigDat’s lyrics frequently mention his time in jail; some of the most recognisable lyrics from his hit single ‘Air Force’ include “I just got back from a stretch, they didn’t miss me when I was gone” and “What you know about sitting in jail, and you feel like the pillow’s giving you spots?”. Having been imprisoned for five years at the age of 13, he has clearly been through a lot in his life, perhaps dealing with some trauma from having his formative years being spent without freedom. Pain Built will no doubt unpack some of this trauma, given the title.

After his success with Harlem Spartans as a drill rapper, he has since swapped out the hardcore drill beats for a funk carioca sound lifted from Brazil. The shift in sound would be jarring if it wasn’t so gorgeous, with his single ‘Shippuden’ arguably being the greatest example, with his intricate flow falling perfectly between elated keys and snappy rhythms.

Blanco isn’t the first UK artist to explore this sound, with M.I.A. doing the same on her single ‘Bucky Done Gun’, and even Everything Everything admitting that their single ‘Cough Cough’ was directly inspired by Major Lazer’s ‘Pon de Floor’.

However, Blanco is certainly unique in being the first drill artist to explore this sound, especially as his exploration of the sound stays true to the original feel of carioca while still sounding like familiar UK rap.

Since the highly influential ‘Kennington Where it Started’, the track that arguably made drill rap relevant, Blanco has found independence and maturity. Speaking to NME, Blanco says “I don’t really call myself drill anymore. Probably in 2018, I kinda pushed… I didn’t make a big decision but the way my life was at the time, I just moved on from it. I grew out of it. It wasn’t for me.”

Speaking on the new musical influences to his sound, Blanco says: “When I make those songs, it just kinda flows. Songs like ‘Pull Up’ [from English Dubbed’] are actually baile funk, not afroswing, and people really liked that. And it was natural. I came across that sound on YouTube one day looking for something, and when I came across this, I was like, “This sounds good, so I used it. I didn’t actively look for it but this is the sound.”

His most recent album, City of Good, was a sensible compilation of the energies Blanco is capable of. He moved to a more modern, sample drill sound on ‘The Great Escape’ with drill-adjacent star Central Cee, and on ‘Cerberus’ with fellow HS member Loski and K-Trap, as well as showcasing his aptitude for carioca with ‘Time Out’ and ‘TSG’. Early fans of Blanco from the golden era of Harlem Spartans could surely only be pleased with Blanco maturing and finding his sound; it may be unrecognisable from the beats he was rapping on back in 2018, but its clear he’s found power through independence.

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On his Instagram, Dsavv posted “free my n**** potta [Izzpot] gonna do u proud bro”, breaking the news of his friends recent incarcertation. Some speculate that a comment like this from Dsavv is indicative of a long sentence instead of a brief recall. More news is expected to follow in the coming days and weeks.

This announcement comes alongside the news that new music is on the way from Izzpot. Clips depicting Izzpot on the phone from the inside, as well as excerpts of unreleased music, have appeared on social media in the last 24 hours.

OFB, being a major figure in UK drill music, headed by arguably the biggest star in drill, Headie One, have been embroiled in multiple controversies over the last few years. As well as being mentioned regularly in the wider conversation about drill music inciting violence in the capital, OFB specifically have recieved heat from the British public for glorifying actual crimes committed by actual criminals.

The aforementioned SJ, once a major emerging talent from OFB, is currently in prison for murder and will only be a free man once he reaches his forties. Headie One, who in the last few years has collaborated with Drake and Future, recieved a huge amount of heat for his track ‘Know Better’, now a drill classic, but then sparked controversy. The lyrical content referred to real crimes and murders; someone speaking to the BBC said the following: “What’s being said are facts relating to real people, what he is saying is real. That person that got shot in his neck, his parents got to listen to that. Everyone from Wood Green knew exactly what he was referring to. Everyone was upset.”

Of course, these accusations are one-sided, and there is a larger story at play. OFB hail from one of the most deprived estates in London and the UK at large, Broadwater Farm. OFB member Bandokay lost his father at a young age, known to the public as Mark Duggan, whose killing sparked the 2011 London riots. Bandokay’s manager said the following to The Guardian: “We’re known as one of the most notorious estates in the UK. We want to change that. Through music, using the technology available to us, we’re coming together to run a business.” Indeed, music is the way out for marginalised children, and in their music they are merely depicting the life around them. Some may see this as deeply subversive. The debate is, of course, itself divisive and ongoing as the genre grows.

The project includes some features from big UK artists, including M1llionz and BackRoad Gee, but the project is mostly featureless, with Cashh’s story-telling at the centre. The 23-track album is extensive, going from drill on ‘Pounds and Dollars’, to familiar road rap on ‘Trench Baby’, to a gleeful dancehall-infused interpolation of Mark Morrison’s classic ‘Return of the Mac’ on ‘Return of the Man’.Additionally littered with skits and vocal segments throughout, the opening track ‘Starving’ opens with an amusing yet frustrating skit with a British airport security officer, where Cashh has to constantly repeat himself as he is speaking in near-unintelligible patois to a White British man. His linguistic code-switching in this opener is indicative of the rest of the album, effortlessly switching between his Jamaican roots and his British culture.

Known as Cashtastic in his early career, he had just released an acclaimed mixtape before being deported in 2004. Born in Jamaica, he had lived in Peckham, South London since the age of 6, and had lived in the UK for four years before he was detained by the UK Border Agency (UKBA) at age 20. The reasons why he was detained were unclear, though the Home Office, unable to comment on specific cases, had said citizens who had lost the right to remain must leave the country, as per The BBC.

The case was well-documented in 2014, even before the Windrush Scandal, as it robbed the up-and-coming rapper of a successful career. But now, in 2021, where public attention toward race, immigration, and empire has rarely been higher, Cashh is back to tell the story of his hardships.

On the project, Cashh said “I poured 7 years worth of blood, sweat and tears into this project. At the pinnacle of my commercial success in March of 2014, I was removed from the UK back to my birth country of Jamaica and had to start from scratch. This is what inspired the title, as this is a reality many have faced in different ways under so many unjust circumstances, so to express my experiences and emotions through my art means everything to me,” as per GRM Daily.

The album is out now and can be listened to below:

Avon and Somerset Police are noting an increase in the number of teenagers producing drill music videos over the last year. They have also noted a rise in weapon offences, a rise of 5% from last year. A total of 82 weapons offences have been recorded in their remit, to which they are responding with increased patrols.

Police around the country are making links between drill music and violent crime. Ch Insp Dan Forster, the area commander for south Gloucestershire, says that “over the past six months we saw an increase in teenage boys making drill videos that they were posting on YouTube” and that “we’ve got a particularly challenging situation with young men aligning themselves with gang culture and carrying weapons and knives,” noting that the problem has accelerated in the last several months, as per The BBC.

Darren Alexander, the leader of a music mentoring program for Bristol’s disadvantaged youth, challenges this Police’s narrative on the drill, that drill music itself is to explain behind a rise in crime. Criticising this link as “surface level”, Mr Alexander says that to blame the rise in violent crime on the drill is “putting the cart before the horse”.

On a Bristol Unpacked podcast, he accepts that drill music’s lyrical content is often violent, yet notes that a lot of it is “for show”. In response to the Police, Alexander says: “I’m not surprised that Avon and Somerset police took that stance – they are firefighters, they see what’s happening on the streets, they see the stats, they see what they see and they put one and one together. If you see a young person making drill music or in a drill video, and you see them on the street carrying a knife or hanging round with people who are known to carry knives or have been arrested for similar or related offences, you’re going to assume things.”

“This doesn’t address the root problem. These people have been increasingly marginalised over generations, economically, socially and racially. They shouldn’t be blamed for what we are seeing on the surface. I find it disappointing that we blame young people who are feeling lost and disenfranchised, when really we should be looking at ourselves,” he said on the podcast.

Darren Alexander runs an award-winning organisation, ACE – short for Aspiration, Creation, Elevation, that works with the youth of Bristol’s most deprived areas that, through music, encourages a way out for deprived youngsters.

UK Police have made numerous attempts to clamp down on drill, with the most notable example being in Digga D, whose terms of release included a requirement to have his song lyrics proofread by police before they could be released. This was chronicled in a BBC documentary titled Defending Digga D. 

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K-trap dropped the track 2 days ago on October the 17th, what would have been Bis’s birthday. Trap posted a clip of the track to his Instagram with the caption “Happy birthday cuz Love you and miss you”.

K-trap has always had a close relationship with the Harlem Spartans with his hometown Gipsy hill being just down the road from the Harlem Spartans hub in Kennington and has dropped multiple tracks alongside each other. The relationship between Trap and Bis was different and much stronger with the pair being cousins.

On Trapos 2020 project, Street side effects, the artist puts a voice note at the end of the opening track “Street side effect”. The voice note is from his late cousin and comes just after the artist shared on the track how it felt losing his little cousin. The voice note is a conversation between the pair about K-traps decision to take off his mask and showed fans the relationship the pair had away from music.

Bis was killed on the 6th December 2019 in Deptford, Southeast London at only age 20. He was a highly regarded rapper in the drill genre and alongside the Harlem Spartans collective helped build the UK drill sound that is so prevalent today. His bar “ Question, If gang pull up are you gonna back your bredrin”, this lyric is regular argued to be one of the best lyrics in drill due to the way it was delivered as well as the popularity of the song.

The lyric comes from his track “Kennington where it started” and featured fellow Harlem member Blanco, Active and Mizormac, the songs original video upload was taken down by police however it was reuploaded in January 2017 on an unknown channel and currently sit on 17 million views. 

Bis and K-traps new single is the pairs first collaboration and it is unknown how many more were recorded before the talented young rapper passed.

“Different” can be listened to here:

The 12 track project will have 6 features and 6 solo tracks, including the already released ‘Tetley’ and ‘Chef’

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Kwengface is from Peckham and raps alongside his group Zone 2. The Peckham rapper always shows love and makes reference to his area, with his project title ‘YPB’ standing for young Peckham boss and 4 of his 6 features being artists from Peckham.

The features on Kwengs upcoming project are; Big Ryde who is a DJ from Giggs infamous SN1 clique, Q2T a rapper from church road in north-west London who made his rise in 2018 when the then balaclava-wearing rapper released his hit ‘Andy Murray’, B Goddy, who is the self-proclaimed ‘Peckham rockstar’ who has gained a strong following after only a year of rapping, PS Hitswuad who has been rapping alongside Kwengface and Zone 2 for over 4 years the duo have released multiple tracks together with charged chemistry, Berna who has worked alongside Kwnegface on their tracks ‘Bait’ and ‘No way’, and Zone 2s Karma who has been rapping for 3 years but has never seemed to find consistency.

The project has been released for preorder but is yet to be given a public release date.

Kwengfaces has been putting out tracks after tacks in the build-up to this project having released 5 tracks in the last 6 months, including a ‘plugged in with fumez’ which currently sit on 8 million views.

Fans will be disappointed not to have seen an Ed Sheeran feature following the images of the pair that flooded the social media timelines in early July.

Kwengfaces debut project ‘YPB:Tha come up’ has not yet been given a title will is available to pre-order here.

‘Youngest in charge’ is by drill rapper SJ, he is part of OFB and released music alongside his friends Double Lz and Bandokay, but in early 2020 he was found guilty of murder and given 21 years, a verdict he and his fellow OFB member continue to argue against claiming SJ is in fact innocent.

‘Youngest in charge’ was released on the 2nd of June 2019,  a few days before on the 16th May 2019 SJ was arrested. The video currently sits on over 24 million views and is deemed a classic by most drill fans.

SJs arrest came as the trio of Double LZ, Bandokay and SJ began to take off, the trio who were only aged 17 and 18 at the time gained massive recognition following the release of their hit ‘Ambush’, which similarly to ‘Youngest in charge’ had a hold on the drill scene at the time and currently sits on 24 million views.

It was widely reported that before SJ was arrested he was offered a music deal worth £100,000.

The remix was released via Press play and featured OFB members Dezzie, Izzpott and SJs regular collaborators, Double Lz and Bandokay, son of Mark Duggan whose murder at the hand of the British police led to the 2011 London riots.

The remix is shot at the same location as the original track and features clips from the original video, due to SJ not being able to be there due to him currently serving a 21-year jail sentence.

The video for The ‘Youngest in charge’ Remix is available to watch here: