Drill rap is all about dissing dead opps,
rapping about murder,
and proving that you’re really about that life.
Bronx drill is one of the most violent rap scenes in the world -
so how is a rich white kid taking it over right now?
This is the wild story of how Lil Mabu
went from living in mansions
to sending disses at legit gang members.
Let’s get right into it.
Back in 2019,
Lil Mabu hopped in the game at around 14 years old
and started dropping melodic rap songs.
His early music sounded like if Post Malone never hit puberty,
and Mabu wasn’t picking up any momentum in the industry with it.
Anyone can grab a beat off YouTube
and record a track on their phone these days,
but something was sketchy about Mabu from the jump.
He was an independent artist that nobody knew,
but even his first songs
sound like they were produced and recorded by industry vets.
It was clear that Mabu had some money behind him
but that didn’t mean that anyone was paying attention.
His pop rap tracks weren’t taking off at all,
so in 2021
he decided to hop on the drill wave instead.
The first time he rapped over a drill beat was on the track Move It,
where he laid down some basic bars like
“I got these bands on me
I got her friend on me
She used to leave me on seen
I ran these racks with my dudes
On the phone making some moves
You hit me out of the blue,
yeah you used to clown me at school.”
Mabu wasn’t rapping about catching bodies yet,
but it was still a crazy switch up from his first tracks.
And when he followed it up with the track Demon Time,
it was clear that Mabu was going all in with drill.
Demon Time is a way more aggressive track.
Mabu went from rapping about getting clowned at school,
to laying down lines like
“Do what I say so
You gonna fold like a table
Demon time, angel
My brothers they toting the fuego
They try to pull up on me
When they see my people I know they gon’ leave.”
and “Don’t cross me, I’m not Jeusus
Run up a check, Fingers they blue
You know the vibes, I stay with the crew.”
The video for the track popped off and almost hit a million views.
Mabu was making some noise in the drill scene,
but it was always pretty clear he wasn’t really about that life.
Just like how his early tracks sounded like they were professionally produced,
the video for Demon Time obviously had a decent budget.
Most drill rappers just shoot their videos out on the street or in the projects,
but Mabu had expensive studio sets
and a lot of production for his very first music video.
He followed Demon Time up
with the track King of the World and got even more aggressive.
On the track he said
“Put a blue face on a plain Jane,
but I ain’t no cripp
Peep the fit, and you want the smoke?
Then pull off on the 5th
Tinted the windows, they blacked out
Said I was broke, so I’m whipping the racks out
Lil boy tried to fight but he tapped out
Hang with the drillers that spinning it back ‘round.”
Lil Mabu was racking up hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube,
and it didn’t take long before someone called him out.
Yus Gz is a rapper from the Bronx
who got active in the streets when he was young.
He reps a gang called the YGz who have issues with the OGz, SevSide,
and other crews in the area.
The YGz and OGz were actually all the same gang back in the day,
but then someone high up in the crew crossed another member
and they ended up splitting into two different groups.
Like most dudes in the drill scene,
Yus was active in the streets before he started making music.
He didn’t start writing songs until he got locked up,
but it didn’t take him long to make waves in the Bronx.
He dropped the track DEAD LOCCS in 2021
and racked up over two million plays,
and that’s when he started calling himself the face of the Bronx.
Yus wasn’t feelin a dude like Mabu jacking the drill culture,
and they started sending shots back and forth on social media.
Dissing other artists has always been part of the rap game,
but this situation was different.
Dudes in the Bronx drill scene
aren’t just rapping about stories they made up in their heads,
they come from a place where saying the wrong thing to the wrong person
can get you killed -
and it seems like Mabu doesn’t realize that some people
are really about that life
and it’s not just an image they put on in music videos.
Mabu took the beef to another level
when he linked up with Yus Gz’ opp Sha EK for a diss track called Everyone K.
Sha is a Bronx drill rapper who reps the OGz,
which automatically makes him an opp for Yus.
But even though they rep rival crews,
they didn’t have any personal beef
until Yus started calling himself the face of the Bronx.
Sha sent a shot with the track Face of the What and said
“Yus Gz, you the face of the Bronx, like how?
Word to my mother, you shot
We dropped a vid on the same day
We could see that I’m lit and n****, you not.”
Yus and Sha have been going back and forth ever since,
so Mabu linked up with Sha to send more shots at Yus.
On the track Everyone K, Mabu said
“I don’t mess with nobody, it’s everyone K
If you lookin’ for me, come and play
Say Mabu’s a cop, but y’all talk to the jakes
He a rat, got out same day
You got knocked for a body, but they dropped the case
You a snitch it’s a shame
We smoking on B and that’s straight to the face
I said beat it, kicked him out the state.”
He also called Yus out by name
and clowned him for getting his social security number leaked online
with the bar
“Yus Gz, where you stay?
Let me send you a new pair of shades
Thanks for the SSN, I’m getting paid
Opened 3 SBA’s in your name.”
Yus was also exposed for allegedly rocking fake designer,
so Mabu called him out and said
“Yus Gz got the craziest fits
He be rockin’ 1 of 1 Designer
So, I got to admit
I got no drip, he flyer
Yuz Gz got the craziest fits
Heard he shipping them straight outta China.”
Yus clapped back with the song In My Mood
and said “Lil Mabu a b**** and I know where you from
I just bought a new Chop,
put the beam on a drum
You a kid when I see you, you done
Duc 5 got kick, tryna get ‘em and run.”
Beefing with Yus just put more eyes on Mabu though,
and last summer he started running up crazy numbers
with tracks like NO SNITCHING with Dusty Locane.
The video hit over seven million views on YouTube,
and the track racked up over 50 million plays on Spotify.
Mabu dropped his debut album called Double M’s,
but what’s wild is who he got features from.
He had Sha EK, Dougie B,
and DThang all on the project -
and they all have complicated street ties in real life.
Sha used to be cool with Dougie B and Kay Flock back in the day,
but they had a falling out over something and don’t work together.
DThang is apparently Kay Flock’s cousin
but he reps the YGz
and is enemies with Flock and Sha EK too.
He sent a shot at Sha on the track Talk Facts and said
“Jiggy man dumbass got hit
That’s word on my mother they never do s***.”
But Sha actually dissed DThang’s dead friend Delilah first.
On the track D&D, he said
“There’s a whole lotta opps I could smoke,
but I’d rather just smoke on Delila.”
Delilah Vasquez was a friend of DThang
who was tragically shot in the head in 2021,
and Sha sent a savage diss at DThang over her death.
Mabu proved that he didn’t know anything about the scene he was trying to hop into
by putting all of these dudes on the same project,
but apparently they’re all cool with it
because he’s getting them clout and views.
Mabu’s latest track is a collab with DD Osama called THROW.
DD Osama started blowing up last year after his 15-year-old brother Notti
was stabbed to death in the subway.
Notti was a drill rapper too and had tracks popping off,
but he was tragically taken by the streets before he could leave them behind.
After Notti died, a crew called 41 dropped the track Notti Bop -
which went viral on social media and had all kinds of people doing a dance
that mocked Notti’s death.
Now DD is blowing up too,
but he says none of it really matters to him
since his brother can’t be here with him to experience it.
That’s what makes this whole thing with Mabu’s even worse.
He’s not just rapping about guns and catching bodies,
he’s using real people who have dealt with real tragedies for clout -
and the New York Post just exposed Lil Mabu for who he really is.
According to the report,
his real name is Matthew Peter DeLuca
and he lives in a mansion on the Upper East Side
and goes to a private school that costs $60K a year.
Plus his family owns another mansion in the Hamptons.
When he was at a middle school that costs over $50K a year,
Mabu was such a good student
that he earned the “Headmaster’s Prize for Strength of Character.”
Mabu is trying to jack the drill culture of artists
who really had to survive the streets,
while he goes to the same school JFK did.
It’s not clear if his career will burn out now that the truth is out there,
but Sha EK told the Post
“He don’t have street cred, but they just respect it
because they know he has music talent.”
A lot of rap fans don’t think drill should be promoted at all
because of all the violence going down behind the music.
Others say that it gives people a way out of the streets
and the violence would be happening anyway.
Slim Jesus was another white kid who blew up making drill music,
but his career fell completely off
after he admitted that everything in his music was cap.
It’s not clear if the same thing will happen to Lil Mabu,
but we know he won’t have to worry about going hungry
if his music career doesn’t work out.