If you’re from Western Sydney,
you know that this is a war zone.
..Retaliation is a must
Ain’t no maybes, ifs or buts...
OneFour are Australia’s first drill group,
a genre associated with Chicago and the UK.
In the summer of 2019,
their video for ‘The Message’ went viral
leaving rap fans around the world
excited, intrigued, and confused.
I’m interested to hear what Australian Drill
sounds like guys
it’s going viral on Twitter right now.
That was heat, this is fire.
Who has the biggest buzz around them right now?
- Crazy. - Undeniably OneFour.
For me, drill music is storytelling,
storytelling about your upbringing
and what you’ve gone through
and what you’ve witnessed, you know.
If you know hoods in Sydney,
everyone in Sydney can tell you that
Mount Druitt’s got a name for violence.
It was a lot worse than it is now.
There’s still violence here and there, you know.
Brawls, stabbings,
other stuff that we don’t want to get into.
We could explain our stories through music.
We could actually paint that picture.
We could relate.
We can’t relate to shooting or something,
but we can relate to stabbings
and punch ons though.
Drill music came to prominence around 2010-ish
in Chicago with artists like Chief Keef.
A couple of years later
it started to break out in London
with crews like Harlem Spartans
and Section Boyz.
A couple of months ago there was a video
that was circulating around my timeline.
It looked like London drill,
It sounded like London drill,
the fashion, the way that they spoke.
Even the way that the video
and the visuals were laid out,
but the biggest difference was
they were rapping in Australian accents.
I’m going to jump on a video call with Mahmood
from Vice Australia HQ
and find out exactly what's going on.
Yes.
- How are you brother? - What’s going on?
How are you?
Good my man, how are you?
Not too bad man,
I want to pick your brains on some things.
This is where I want to start, yeah.
Where is the twenty seventh district?
It’s the first two numbers of the postcode
and Mount Druitt, where OneFour’s from,
that’s one of the crews in that postcode,
Western Sydney’s a pretty rough area.
What type of people are down there like heritage-wise?
It’s a pretty densely migrant populated area.
There’s a lot of Pacific Islanders,
a lot of Lebanese,
a lot of Afghans now.
It’s generally a lower socio-economic area.
It’s a working class area where
a lot of migrants live, trying to make a life
for themselves in Australia.
We’re gonna be shooting a clip tonight.
Everyone's gonna be there.
We’re gonna have bikes and that.
Show you the hood out here.
Everyone’s going to come out tonight.
You’re growing up here, you gotta have a dirt bike.
Just in case they want to have fun
and get away from the Pigs and that.
We’ll have a couple of bikes running in the shoot as well,
you’ll see tonight.
So there was this one video that went super viral.
Did the video go viral over there as well?
- Is this the OneFour video? - Yes.
Yeah of course, yeah.
Since the first track they’ve put out,
‘Shanks And Shivs,’
no one has seen anything like that in Australia.
No one has seen young Islanders
or young ethnics in general
represent their experience of the street
in music or really in art in general.
They were probably one of the first ones.
We’re Australia’s first and only drill group.
And what makes us a drill group
is that we actually do what we rap about.
Mount Druitt’s home, you know.
It’s a big place.
It’s the trenches.
This is the area that needs
the most support, you know.
You can see it’s different to out near the beaches,
No one from the beaches comes around here.
When I’m out and about and I’m out of the area
I do get homesick.
We dress different out here.
We talk different.
Usually people like to wear Shocks, TNs, Maxis.
Trackies, you know.
Unless we were certain people in the Australian rap scene.
They just hear of stories and rap it,
when other people, they’re doing it, and then they rap it.
At the end of the day we’re not
rappers being gangsters, we’ve done it.
And now we’re rapping, we’re telling our story
..Cellyonefour from the Western Sydney
Riding with boys, what you test is risky
Gee’d up and the rest be fishy
Contagious, man I left them itchy...
What we’ve learned from music and business and that
is touring what you wanna be and what you wanna do,
but what’s been holding us back is
the Boys’ legals, you know.
We’ve got some boys that do rap
and are in court at the moment.
We got boys getting pinched,
like my friend Cell, you know.
he could have been out here rapping still,
but he just couldn’t leave the streets and that.
See like with Australian drill,
it seems like those guys have taken more
of what’s happened in London
than they have in Chicago.
Why do you think that is?
We can relate more to the scene in London
in terms of the dress,
what you call ‘the ends’ we call ‘the areas’.
So in our areas everyone dresses the same way,
We all rock TNs probably because
they were the most expensive shoe on the rack,
and because they were a tight fit
you could run off, and dust off real quick,
so all the drug dealers and that
in our areas were wearing them.
We started seeing that in London rap videos
and we could just relate to that scene.
And then of course there was the whole knife thing as well.
We do have firearms on the street,
but it’s usually the upper echelons of organized crime,
it’s not really on a street level thing
it’s more knife crime.
We could relate to what they were saying
and their experience of how to survive on the street.
..F**k lad
You shoulda seen how he was bleeding out
Covered in red but I cheffed him again
’cause his man backed off when he needed help
Dripping blood from his body
like he was donating to Red Cross
Pull out my shank and then jet off
Pull out my shank and then jet off...
My boy Celly was really close to a lot of these boys.
This is Celly’s, it was one of Celly’s favorite houses
to f**king bender at.
All the boys, we used to drink in here,
we used to have fires and that, you know.
I don’t know what’s going on now,
no one’s here anymore.
I remember I came here one night,
I was with Paulie,
I was sitting at this house and f**king,
Lebby came out of nowhere and I was like,
“What are you doing?”
Chopper everywhere, he was like, ’“Oh,”
and he pulled it out, he was like,
“cause’ I’m f**king hiding this.”
I was like, “What? You’re a mad c**t.”
He full got pinched for that night too.
Little boy too. Little white boy.
He was like up to here.
Shorter, yeah.
When you don’t know how to fight
you’ve got use what’s around you.
I’d put that away, man.
I’m tellin’ ya, that was our best friend
for a good f**king year and a half, mate.
Every night.
Ghetto bird out every night.
Over there is a very special spot.
First time I ever got jumped by the police.
..Shanks and Shivs
I swear that’s all we need
When we go to there to take that trip...
Police would throw their weight around,
jump on us in the dark.
There’s no cameras out here, you know.
And when they used to find out our age and that,
all of a sudden you’re free to go, you know.
No charges laid or nothing, you know.
And we used to be cheering, “We got away with it!”
But really they’re just cleaning up their tracks
and letting us go home and that, you know.
I swear that’s all we need
At the end of the day, they’re trying to do their job, but...
They’ve done more than that.
I remember Al, one of JM’s brothers,
they pinched him.
And they gave him a big beating,
his face was not normal, you know.
And just chucked him out the truck.
They’re at my front door everyday
and I’m not even on bail, I’m not on nothing anymore.
They still show up being menaces and that.
I’ve got no love for them.
If this video gets anywhere, tell whoever’s up there
to fix the reception out here.
We’ve got no reception on our phones and that
you can never get through to anyone, I swear.
That’s why a lot of people don’t call police out here.
Are they doing a lot of shows and stuff like that out there?
Well they can’t because
the police are putting pressure on promoters
not to put their shows on,
because they think they’re going to attract
rowdy crowds from the areas.
So they’re just shutting them down in any way they can
or just pressuring promoters to not bill them.
It takes more flak than things like
movies and like some of the series that we see.
Why do you feel like rap music takes
the brunt of the majority of it?
In music there’s less checks and balances
anyone can make music and kind of create
an art form that’s quite bare knuckled, you know.
The people that are criticizing it saying that,
“Oh it’s too hardcore, it’s too full on,
it’s romanticizing a thing,
it’s like a call to arms
people are gonna start stabbing each other.”
You start to look at who those people are
that are pointing the finger and saying that
None of those people are from the areas usually.
There’s no one from the areas or from the ends,
whatever you want to call it,
that listens to that music and thinks,
“The next day I’m gonna go stab someone now.”
or suddenly start walking with a strut in their step.
No one does that, man.
See how every house that we walk past has got dogs and that?
It’s because the crime rate
always used to be so high back in the day.
All of these boys, break and enters and all that.
Nearly every second house has a dog.
To warn the owners and that.
There’s a lot of stray dogs around here, you know.
We used to get chased by a lot of them.
A lot of our boys, we’ve got a lot of chubby boys
that can’t get away and that, you know.
So when we used to hit the fences and that
and they couldn’t hit the fences properly,
we had to jump down and that
and like, you know, cause distractions and that, you know.
This is where everything started, you know.
All the boys used to link up back in the day,
like three, four, maybe five years ago.
We were all real young, you know, still in school and that.
We always used to kick back in this garage here.
We used to label them OneFour parties.
Everyone from the area will come
and it would go off, you know.
Everyone used to turn on the coppers
after the parties were getting shut down.
Everyone would just wait for the end
and just try and turn on the cops,
when they used to pull through, you know.
Bottles, rock, everything.
People would end up on top of their houses and that.
I think people used to come to the parties
just to watch the fights afterwards as well.
Yeah, people used to punch on, you know.
Back in the day, you’d get your name out here
for being a mad fighter,
or doing the craziest stuff.
If this kid, you know, if we heard that
this kid ran up into a school
and just, you know, bladed a c**t,
he’d get a big name out in the streets saying, you know,
f**k, that guy did this,
and someone would try and do a crazier thing, you know.
..JM I’m a OneFour veteran
Boss of my hood ’cause I back my section
When I met them streets and slapped that thing
Lad, I knew I found my obsession
Had me running the ball no question
Swear any opp I saw I pressed him..
For anyone who doesn’t know, what’s an opp?
An opp’s a gronk.
Who gives a f**k.
Opps are opposition.
We adopted that one from UK and US,
they said opp first.
Around here, a real filthy word to call your enemies,
are like ‘dogs’ and ‘gronks,’ you know what I mean?
That’s Aussie slang, you know.
It’s a rude word, rude word.
Real disrespectful word, you know what I mean?
When you get called that they’re just labelling you,
at the lowest, you know what I mean?
here in Australia.
So what happens if you get called that?
F**k, it’s all up to you.
That’s your pride you want to take care of.
..Get down when I grip that steel
Hands up when I bring that hammer
Come through when I pull that ching
Have your head face down like a south west ganga
OneFour we ain’t got no manners
Only if you test my crew
If you ain’t a part of this beef..
The beat’s the same,
the production’s the same,
the style is the same
even elements of the slang.
I could hear in the way that they’re rapping
there’s certain things that they say
that we say over here, yeah?
But it’s just with a completely different accent.
I feel like a lot of what they do is in many ways
like a homage to what the UK has done
with their genre and their sound
and they’re just trying to recreate
their story and our story in Australia
using that particular sound
because that sound makes sense to us.
I don’t know why, but it’s the urgency of the way
the London sound is.
It kind of translates in the culture.
He’s got a drink, give me a drink, bra.
Let’s have a drink, Panadol.
Might as well pop one open.
Australia’s finest.
Woodstock, bra.
Yeah, this is our Jack Daniel’s and our Jim Beam.
Breakfast for Panadol.
So tonight we’ll be heading over to M.O.
We’ve got a shoot for our new single
called ‘Spot The Difference’.
You’ll just see more boys, you know.
You’ll see more gang and that.
It’ll be a good shoot too because it’s a good energy,
and good vibes when it comes to a shoot, you know.
It’s good just to see everyone together.
Everyone gets their turn in front of the camera.
It’s good to see everyone just have fun and that, you know.
My district has too much drillers
Like who wants it?
Like who wants war with Sydney’s realest?
They talk that talk on gats
But them boys they ain’t got no triggers
They act like they in trenches
But them boys ain’t got no diggers
Like spot the difference
OneFour, we’re still active
We’re still urching
If I ain’t out there in the field cuz
Then I guarantee I’m working
My crew still in the trap
Flippin’ packs, dis and dat
Heard there’s runners here in my hood
How can they run lad without tax?
And if we’re talking scores, hashtag facts
Like who got robbed at Cass?
Try coming down on them trains lad
You get sent home on them tracks
J_EMZ took that trip, lad, with a stick...
There’s 27 districts
but every nationality, you name it, everyone’s here.
Here’s my brothers from Sixty and that.
-Sixty, bra. -Sixty, bra.
Murder Squad.
Murder Squad, Murder Squad.
Sixty, Sixty.
Oh yeah, no, we just do music videos,
because we can’t tour and that.
Music videos help our views as well, you know.
In Australia, not many people do what we’re doing.
It’s good to see Australia do things like this.
It’s out of the ordinary for some people.
..Like who’s that opp on the block?
Who’s that five-foot s**t?
Like who wants war with Sydney’s realest?
They talk that talk on gats
But them boys they ain’t got no triggers
They act like they in trenches
But them boys ain’t got no diggers
Like spot the difference
Run through houses
Kick down doors like Raptor Squad
They just talk backstage Bring cameras on
That’s where these actors from
They’re not frontline
They’re feline
They’re p*****s
But I just don mine
Then rewind
And push it, push it, push it
We violent men, they talk too much
We silence them, quiet them
And plus this blade will take his life
And minus them
Ride on them
They say this s**t disgusting
But I say we f**kin’ love it
Offsite we rush them, time and place
The opps get got in public...
Do you feel that like British people
the fans of drill will be able to
just look past the accent
and where you guys are from
and be able to fully embrace it
and take it to, you know,
help take it to a different level?
No one denies the influence,
but it would be good to see some big UK acts
give these young boys a leg up too
if they’re into it
and give them a feature or something, man.
Yeah, I hear that.
We’ve got some grimy cats in Australia too, man.
Say no more, G.
Well listen, thanks for your time anyway, bro.
- Honor, my brother. - Bless up, brother.
Let’s party and drink tonight.
Let’s shut down that f**king road then let’s go.
..See I still remember
That day Freddy copped that whack
They took ’bout fifteen boys to court
And all of us got knocked back
Yeah, back in the day it was shanks and shivs
But now we all got that strap
Now I’m hitting the Mounty Bop on an opp
As soon as I clock that back
Opps, they burn when I’m on that track
See I’ve been going OT in the streets
As soon as I got set free
Now my young Gs loose on the roads
They runnin’ amok like Assassin’s Creed
They scream, JM lad, do something,
Your boys are a different breed
Then out comes out my name, like YP said
Of course I’ma back my Gs
That side don’t listen, ooh
We took this drill thing serious
Now look some of the opps gone missin’
Like why do you think our faces are hidden?
The gang’s on strict conditions
We come through militant, whole crew diligent
Ready to back our district
They hate our rude image
They say my crew’s British
We pull up like “who’s with it?”
Load that clip like grrrr, finish
Been gone for two minutes
Wait, wait lad, stop that car
Better hit that gas when I let that slap
Doot, doot!
Flippin’ packs, dis and dat
Heard there’s runners here in my hood
How can they run lad without tax?
And if we’re talking scores, hashtag facts
Like who got robbed at Cass?
We’re not the first ones
to ever have started this gang stuff.
We’re not the first ones.
We’re just one of many that made a voice
for everyone to hear about.
We’re one of them that just made it out.
and let the whole world know.