Lethal world of drill music laid bare as heartbroken mum reveals how son’s horrific murder was PREDICTED in warped song
FIGHTING back tears in court, mother Sharon Kendall’s blood began to boil as she listened to chilling drill music lyrics that detailed the harrowing way her son was stabbed to death.
Most disturbingly of all, the words, penned by Joel Amade, were written nearly a year before he took the life of teenage Jason Isaacs with eight knife wounds to the back, in Northolt, London.
“Stab first then talk”, “on flight mode when we walk” and “I’ll put holes in your back” were among the lyrics that matched details from the 2017 murder and two more songs detailing the butchering were later released.
Recalling watching the music video in court, Sharon, 44, tells The Sun: “It was horrendous, threatening and really weird because it was exactly what happened to Jason.”
It left the mum-of-four outraged over why nothing was done to stop gang member Amade, who was later sentenced to 20 years in prison, and tragically she’s not alone.
Multiple families have found their loved one’s harrowing demise graphically detailed in the lyrics of drill music – a subgenre of hip-hop that often talks about gang culture, drugs and crime.
Sharon tells us: “I hate drill music, it must be banned one million per cent because it’s not talking about nice things, it’s about killing people and the horrific crimes they have done.”
She believes a widespread ban could “save lives” but opponents argue the real issue is “violent lyrics”, which feature in many musical genres, not drill music.
In some of the most popular tracks, rappers boast about their criminal exploits, often in a graphic way and with no consideration for victims’ families.
This week, The Sun exposed how musician TEN, whose music was said to “really stand out” when showcased on BBC 1Xtra, had previously served a life sentence for murder.
Real name Jake Fahri, the 35-year-old killed “gentle giant” Jimmy Mizen after throwing a glass oven dish at him, which severed blood vessels in his neck.
Sickeningly, the 2008 murder, which saw the 16-year-old bleed to death inside a south London bakery, appeared to be referenced in one of TEN’s music videos.
Balaclava-clad Fahri spits: “See a man’s soul fly from his eyes and his breath gone. S***, I wanted more, it made it less wrong. Seeing blood spilled [on the] same floor he was left on.”
In other lyrics, he speaks of a need to “sharpen up my blade” and watching a man “melt like Ben and Jerry’s” ice cream after he “stuck it on” him – a reference to stabbing.
The family of Millwall FC fan Jimmy, who were appalled that TEN’s music was promoted on the BBC, told us: “The worst of this is it will make him a celebrity to some.”
On Friday, Fahri was was arrested and recalled by police after we revealed he had breached his parole.
In a statement, the BBC told The Sun: “1Xtra takes our editorial responsibility very seriously, and we have strict guidelines in place before any content is broadcast.
“Whilst we take into account the need for creativity and artistic integrity, 1Xtra does not glamorise violence and decisions on music are made on a case-by-case basis.”
Dealers, shooters & knifemen
But utilising the BBC’s platform is furthering the careers of murderers like Fahri and other criminals. The Sun found at least three criminals featured by the corporation in recent years.
They were Jyrelle ‘Loski’ O’Connor, jailed for carrying a loaded gun; Rhys ‘Digga D’ Herbert, caged for violent disorder and smuggling and supplying cannabis; and Irving ‘Headie One’ Adjei, sentenced for street violence, dealing crack and heroin and carrying a knife.
Jason’s murderer Amade and others have also been endorsed by DJ Tim Westwood, who left the BBC in 2013, and proudly appeared in their music videos showing his face while they wore balaclavas.
These career boosts are then complimented by platforms like YouTube and Spotify, which help drill rappers earn money and exposure, in turn potentially leading to lucrative music deals.
Amade is a murderer, he’s in prison. He shouldn’t be earning from the YouTube videos, making music about it but it took a long time to get them removed.
Sharon Kenndall, victim's mum
Jayden O’Neill-Crichlow, known as SJ or Slim Jim, was offered a £150,000 recording contract while in prison awaiting a trial for a brutal gangland murder.
He alongside four accomplices carrying a gun, knives and a machete, hunted down father-of-one Kamali Gabbidon-Lynck in February 2019 and killed him in a salon.
SJ’s drill music group OFC – Original Farm Boys – had 35 million views on just one of their YouTube videos.
In that track, he detailed a shank getting “saucy”, meaning covered in blood, and gunshots were heard after they rapped: “I just see an opp (opponent), let me take him out.”
It’s alleged that O’Neill-Crichlow’s lyrics inspired at least one of two 12-year-olds, who can’t be named for legal reasons, to stab to death gang rival Shawn Seesahai, 19, in Wolverhampton, in 2023.
One of the killers posed with a picture of a zombie knife and captioned it ‘SJ Prison Freestyle’, which is one of SJ’s songs that features lyrics about using a Rambo knife to “rip through guts”.
Twisted boasts
Earlier this month, Kammar ‘Kay-O’ Henry-Richards, 25, was jailed for life for fatally shooting a gang rival Kacey Boothe, in Walthamstow, in 2022.
In a music video for Kay-O Laughing Stock, he boasted about the weapon being used to gun down Boothe and also his brother Kyle in August 2020. Miraculously the latter survived.
He rapped: “Big Boothe and Little got hit (shot), same Sig (gun), that’s a sour family. Both got slapped at functions, neck and head, handguns come handy.”
It felt like I was moving in slow motion like I was in a film. I was in utter shock. My brain couldn’t cope with the trauma.
Sharon Kendall, victim's mum
Fame and fortune can await some drill music stars despite tracks containing bloody, harrowing and chilling descriptions of serious crimes.
Sometimes the source material is fiction but other times it’s real, and for the families of victims, the boasts immortalised on video taunt and haunt them.
Sharon knows this all too well. She says it took seven months to get one music video that included twisted references to her late son removed from YouTube.
“It’s scary, in these drill music videos they are saying what they have done but forget that’s someone’s child they have just killed,” she tells The Sun.
“Amade is a murderer, he’s in prison. He shouldn’t be earning from the YouTube videos, making music about it but it took a long time to get them removed.
“I think in one video, someone put up a spliff and said, ‘We’ve got Jason, we’re smoking him’, referring to how they had killed him. These kids are just brutal.”
In November 2017, Jason, 18, was walking to a house party when he was ambushed by Amade, who was on a moped with three other pals in Northolt, London.
Sharon tells us the gang member had never met her son before that fateful night but had “threatened him” a year earlier either on social media or via text.
She says: “My son was stabbed eight times, not just once, he meant to do it. My son didn’t fight back or defend himself, he curled into a ball.”
Sharon was celebrating a friend’s birthday when she received a call to say her son had been stabbed and ran 15 minutes to reach her child, who was bleeding to death.
It’s like they don’t realise the ripple effect it has on everyone, even their own families, and releasing music about it makes it even worse.
Sharon Kendall, victim's mum
She says: “It felt like I was moving in slow motion like I was in a film. I was in utter shock. My brain couldn’t cope with the trauma.
“His injuries were really bad. He had his spleen removed and part of his lung. He had four heart attacks on the operating table.
“I’ll never forget when, after three days, the surgeon told me, ‘We’re really sorry but his organs are shutting down. He couldn’t fight it. His injuries were too bad.’”
‘Destroying lives’
The trauma of those memories and Sharon needing to move from London to the Midlands to protect her family made her all the more furious upon discovering Amade and others penned chilling lyrics about her son’s murder.
“These kids don’t realise the heartache,” Sharon says. “It’s not just me, Jason’s siblings have all suffered.
“My son has anxiety and doesn’t go out, my daughter is heartbroken still eight years on and my mum is a different woman.
“It affects everyone, even Jason’s friends aren’t the same kids anymore. One still has nightmares about what happened.
“It’s like they don’t realise the ripple effect it has on everyone, even their own families, and releasing music about it makes it even worse.
“We had to start new lives in a different area and lost all of our friends. I lost the area I loved and my job too and my kids had to move to different schools.”
Sharon’s not alone in her mission to get drill music videos with violent lyrics removed. The Metropolitan Police requested YouTube take down 367 in the year up to March 2023.
Of that figure, 315 were successful. It was a big rise from two years earlier, when just 101 take-downs were asked for and only two were denied.
Police started monitoring drill music in 2015, around three years after it started to become more popular in London and spread to the wider UK.
The gangs have chosen to exploit drill music for their own purposes, it’s that coupled with what’s going on in society with county lines and knife crime
Lennox Rodgers, Refocus Project founder
By 2019, the Met introduced the Project Alpha taskforce to gather intelligence from social media to prevent gang crime and take down social media videos.
Two years later, Sir Mark Roley, commissioner for the force, blamed drill music for “perpetuating violence and destroying lives among young Black Londoners”.
And then, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) ruled drill music videos could be “admissible evidence for a jury to consider” for crimes involving suspected gang members in 2022.
It has led to a showdown with pro-drill music campaigners, who argue the genre is not to blame for crime.
Campaign groups like Art Not Evidence have gone further, condemning the use of lyrics in court cases and slamming prosecutors for creating “negative stereotypes” about young black people.
Lennox Rodgers, 61, who rehabilitates county lines gang members as part of the Refocus Project, notes not all drill tracks are violent or negative, but claims the genre is often hijacked by gangs.
“The gangs have chosen to exploit drill music for their own purposes, it’s that coupled with what’s going on in society with county lines and knife crime,” he says.
“It can become very controlled. If you’re part of a gang that has beef with another gang, they may rap about that or if there has been an attack on a member in a drill track.”
Former county lines gang member Harrison, 22, explains that drill music is “violent and aggressive” by definition, telling us the slang word ‘drill’ refers to a shooting.
“Even if you’re not saying ‘I’m gonna shoot you’ or do this, it’s still aggressive no matter what you’re saying,” he tells The Sun.
For heartbroken families like Sharon’s, however, the violence remains all too real.
The Sun approached Spotify and YouTube for comment.
What is drill music and where did it come from?
DRILL music is a form of trap music that first originated in the South Side of Chicago.
The style is a prominent part of hip-hop and can be recognised by its violent, dark lyrical content.
Drill music focuses on crime and the daily ordeals of life on the streets.
And the word itself is street slang for the use of automatic weapons.
The beat tends to be of a slow tempo – usually 60 or 70 beats per minute.
The rapping style isn’t concerned with metaphors or punchlines and often has a very deadpan delivery.
One of the main players in the musical movement is Chicago’s Chief Keef who explained that his simplistic lyrics and delivery are intentional: “I know what I’m doing.
“I mastered it. And I don’t even really use metaphors or punchlines.
“‘Cause I don’t have to. But I could. … I think that’s doing too much.
“I’d rather just say what’s going on right now. … I don’t really like metaphors or punchlines like that.”
The New York Times wrote a profile on the genre’s focus in 2019 on violence, saying the music is unmediated and raw and without bright spots, focused on anger and violence.
The publication said: “The instinct is to call this tough, unforgiving and concrete-hard music joyless, but in truth, it’s exuberant in its darkness.
“Most of its practitioners are young and coming into their creative own against a backdrop of outrageous violence in Chicago, particularly among young people
“That their music is a symphony of ill-tempered threats shouldn’t be a surprise.”