This chapter considers the street culture that evolved on the estate between 2011 and 2020 by discussing the music videos produced by members of E1S, followed by 13 and then a new group called LSM. The analysis helps to add to the various academic discussions on drill music (see Fatsis, 2018, 2019; Pinkney and Robinson-Edwards, 2018; Ilan, 2020; Scott, 2020). Yet the aim is to go further, drawing on artists and others in the drill scene’s accounts to consider how the marketing and revenue implications of the attention economy have caught young people in a dynamic where violent online personas influence their offline lives. The chapter will show how young people juggle portraying attention grabbing performative bravado, maintaining a sense of authenticity and the less violent and less clickable elements of their lives.

The chapter shows how the content produced can reflect, albeit in an exaggerated way, the life course and criminal development of some artists but not others. Many of those featured in the videos, even those depicting particularly violent personas, are not perpetrators of serious violence. Others whose violent lyrics express truer to life experiences are usually involved in street-level dealing. The content of their tracks became less explicitly violent as and when they progressed out of street-level drug markets. Yet, those who built up a followership by portraying a violent persona needed to keep up this image to maintain their popularity. As the drill artists from St Mary’s have found, to keep earning enough money to stay ‘out of the game’, others have to believe you are still in it.

Drill: the sound of the estate

Gerald, who had built a reputation as one of the best new producers in South London, not content with only being allowed to operate the studio with adult supervision, kept pushing for greater access.

Although the foyer often smelt of weed, and there was evidence that those using the studio were regularly skinning up in the building, on the surface, the studio caused no real concerns. Generally, Charis or I could have a quiet word with those building a joint, and they would leave.