A group of New York rappers have met with the city’s mayor Eric Adams after he recently spoke out against “alarming” drill music.
Adams, who took office last month as the 110th mayor of New York City, said last week that he wanted to sit down with social media companies to “state that you have a civic and corporate responsibility” in regards to promoting drill music.
“You know, I mean, we pulled Trump off Twitter because of what he was spewing, yet we are allowing music – displaying of guns, violence – we’re allowing it to stay on these sites,” he added.
On Tuesday (February 15), Adams met with the likes of Fivio Foreign, Maino, B-Lovee, Slow Bucks and Bleezy to discuss public safety in the city and the gun violence that is impacting the hip-hop community (via ABC News).
Speaking to reporters yesterday (February 16), Adams said that the group came to the meeting “with a lot of energy” and were concerned that the mayor intended to “ban” drill music.
Adding that he had “a great conversation” with the group, Adams said that he was primarily concerned by drill rappers who make violent threats to their rivals in their music.
“Violent people who are using drill rapping to post who they killed, and then antagonise the people who they are going to kill, is what the problem is.”
In a video from the meeting that was shared on Instagram, the rapper Maino says: “There’s been a lot of talk about drill rap, drill music in New York City, connecting violence with the culture, and I just wanted to create a conversation with the mayor.”
The clip then sees Adams add: “We’re going to roll out something together on the whole conversation, and we’re looking forward to it.”
You can see a selection of social media posts from Adams’ meeting with the rappers below.
In the UK, it was announced last month that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is to review its guidance on the use of drill lyrics as evidence against defendants in criminal trials.