UK-based drill music is getting banned by YouTube and police alike. But censoring this sub-genre is proving tricky.
Drill music started in the violence-torn streets of Chicago, and quickly crossed the Atlantic into London boroughs like Brixton. But the hip-hop phenomenon has recently been the subject of a serious clampdown by British authorities, mostly for the supposed violence it perpetuates.
Local authorities and even the UK government are worried about the music’s openly violent lyrics. In many cases, lyrics are believed to target specific individuals and have links to specific crimes as well. The violent beefing has led to direct clampdowns on the music itself, with suspected videos being banned from YouTube and other popular video hosting websites.
However, the associated artists and fans of the genre aren’t easily deterred. Drill music videos are being removed from YouTube and other video hosting sites, so people have begun uploading drill videos to PornHub.
But why Pornhub?
It appears that the adult website doesn’t monitor videos in the same way that YouTube’s copyright system does. Moreover, Pornhub is mainly focused on pornography, with non-adult videos a relative rarity.
But maybe not as rare as you might thing. Though it may seem absurd, PornHub has had a rather colorful history of hosting music alongside its general content. In fact, the site even created its own record label in 2014 to sponsor and promote the work of artists unrelated to pornography.
And there have been notable mainstream examples of music appearing on the site. In 2016 Kanye West’s album The Life of Pablo was released exclusively on TIDAL for streaming. As a revolt to this, many people began providing alternative routes to listen to the album, one of the options being a stream of the album uploaded to PornHub.
As of right now, it’s unclear who exactly is uploading the videos. One of the rap groups frequently uploaded to the site, 1011, was notoriously banned from making music that includes lyrics surrounding death or injury, so their videos may be forcibly removed.