UK Drill

What it is

South London took Chicago drill around 2014 and rebuilt its rhythm section out of the local grime and dubstep vocabulary. The result moved far enough from the original to need its own page. The 808 slides constantly, often through a whole phrase, in a way Chicago drill's does not. The hi-hats stutter in pairs and triplets rather than sitting on eighths. Above all the backbeat moves: instead of landing on beat 3 it is commonly pushed to the and of 3, which drags the whole bar and is the single quickest way to identify the style. New York drill, from 2019 onwards, is this pattern with different samples on top rather than a third rhythm, so it lives inside this page.

What it sounds like

Dark, gliding and unstable underneath, precise on top. The 808 rarely holds still: it bends between notes across the bar with long portamento, which makes the low end feel like a melody being dragged. Snares are tight and dry, often with a rim click answering them. Hats come in uneven pairs and stutters rather than a steady pulse. The music above is minimal and modal, frequently a single sampled figure on a flute, a guitar or a plucked string with a lot of space around it, and the mix is cleaner and wider than Chicago's.

Key elements

• The pushed backbeatThe snare on the and of 3 rather than on 3. It arrives a sixteenth-note pair late against the expectation set by trap and it is the defining rhythmic feature of the style.
• The gliding 808Long portamento between every note, so the bass is a continuous line rather than a series of hits. Producers write it as a melody first and treat it as a drum second.
• Stuttered hatsHats in uneven groups, two together then a gap then three, rather than a steady sixteenth pulse. The unevenness is written in, not humanised in afterwards.
• A rim click layerA dry side stick answering the snare on the beats the snare has vacated, holding the pulse the pushed backbeat lets go of.
• One sampled figureA flute, a guitar or a plucked string phrase, usually two bars, repeated with long gaps. The sparseness above the drums is inherited from Chicago and kept.

How to get them

• 808Glide of 150 to 250 milliseconds, decay long enough that notes overlap, and a slight pitch drop at the start of each phrase rather than each note. Write the line on a piano roll like a bassline, then let the glide join it up.
• SnarePut the main hit on the and of 3 and resist moving it back. Tight electric snare, dry or with under 0.3 seconds of room, high-passed at 300Hz so it stays out of the 808.
• RimA side stick at around 60 velocity on beats 2 and 4, dry and centred. It gives the ear the pulse the displaced snare removed, which is why the pattern reads as syncopated rather than as broken.
• HatsWrite them in groups: two sixteenths, a gap, a beat, then three. Vary the velocity across each group rather than within the bar as a whole, and keep the whole lane under 80.
• The sampleOne melodic phrase, pitched down two or three semitones, low-passed around 8kHz, with a long reverb and a wide stereo image. Then leave two bars of silence before it comes back.
• Swing50 percent. The displaced snare and the uneven hat groups already supply the lopsided feeling that swing would supply elsewhere, and adding shuffle on top makes the pattern unreadable.

Reference points

67, Headie One, Central Cee, M1llionz, and producers including M1OnTheBeat, Ghosty, Carns Hill and AXL Beats, plus the New York branch around Pop Smoke. Named as reference points for the sound, not as endorsements or as anyone to imitate.