Editorial: New York City Mayor's Drill-Music Debate

NYC Mayor Eric Adams, inaugurated in January, has set the tone very quickly that curbing gun violence throughout the Big Apple will be one of his biggest priorities. Last week, following the deaths of two Brooklyn rappers CHII WVTTZ and TDot Woo, NYC mayor Eric Adams announced in a press conference his intent to speak to reps of social media companies to remove NY Drill videos from their platforms, claiming that they incite violence and set a bad example for people to follow. The logic being that "We pulled Trump off Twitter because of what he was spewing, yet we are allowing music, displaying of guns, violence, we are allowing it to stay on the site, because look at the victims... we’re going to show exactly what is being displayed, and we are alarmed by it. We are alarmed by the use of social media to really over-proliferate this violence in our communities.”

This would not be the first time that politicians, law enforcement, or other government officials have attempted to suppress hip-hop music with the intent to end violence, NWA received a letter from the FBI asking them to stop performing their song Fuck Tha Police, Chicago mayor Rahm Emmanuel even banned a virtual performance from Chief Keef, claiming his music "promotes violence". Yet such condemnations and calls to action don't come against artists of other genres of music with violent, aggressive subject matter (rock or punk just for example).

These political actions