Drill Goes As Headie One Goes
For Headie One, the last year or so have been littered with extremes both good and bad. In August of last year he dropped the universally celebrated Music x Road mixtape but four months later he’d be hit with a six month prison sentence. He was released in April of this year; stepping directly into a helicopter upon leaving jail and no doubt hoping his literal acsent into the sky would typify the trajectory of his career from that point onwards. With a new mixtape set to be released that same day of his release from pen, it had to feel as if — “it’s only up from here”. Life rarely follows such linear patterns. Headie’s career didn’t quite hit the ground running upon his chopper landing; the GANG mixtape held some light-hearted corn for its experimental and left-field direction. The disappointment of the project has since drifted from our minds though, especially since ‘The One’ linked up with ‘The Boy’ on the blockbuster Only You Freestyle. As he gears up to release a new album ‘Edna’, Headie’s name is the biggest in drill, yet that billing doesn’t seem to account for how his creative endeavours have pushed the genre forward. At each turn -be it triumph or trial and tribulation- the journey of Headie One and others speaks drill’s growth and its challenges.
Headie One has always had a penchant for the unconventional. By the time he’d dropped ‘Drillers x Trappers’ with fellow OFB frontman Rv, drill had progressed past the hard but often unmixed beats and advanced beyond the inventive if not sometimes amateurish flows of its formative years. Still Headie brought a whole new element to the table: beyond his unique rhyme style he routinely incorporated melody where you’d assume it ought to have no place. Without context, drill bars delivered in Headie’s signature autotuned croon might sound like the stuff of parody but his style and approach are somehow transcendent rather than transgressive. The freedom Headie enjoys to challenge convention extends to his choice of production too. Last year’s Music x Road ventured into what was then unchartered territory by meshing drill’s customary growling 808s and skittering hi-hats, with samples from the likes of Faith Evans and Ultra Nate in a way that is oxymoronic yet brilliant. The best example? Even if you’re already familiar, go and listen again to how mixtape highpoint ‘Both’ samples Ultra Nate’s 90s dance classic ‘Free’, chopping the instantly recognisable guitar riff and vocals to amazing effect.
While Headie is amongst both the first and the best to experiment in this way, he’s but a single figure in the progressive enclave of drill music that routinely succumbs to its creative wanderlust. Search ‘RnDrill’ on twitter or YouTube and you’ll see a wave of producers posting soundclips where they’ve thrown classic RnB chops in with hi-hats and menacing 808s to form their own cross-genre gumbo. That UK drill now draws influence from so far across the musical spectrum is testament to its willingness to push beyond its own boundaries.
This said, nobody has shown themselves to be more committed to this evolution than Headie One. Despite the less-than-rave reviews and reception to the mixtape, GANG showed the extent to which Headie is willing to take creative risks. Linking up with Fred Again who is himself an eclectic producer, the general consensus was that in trying to show how flexible an artist he is Headie overdid it. The contorting of his flow and delivery to suit this new sound came off awkwardly and didn’t blend well with the quirky electronic flavours and the niche features. Although the project itself wasn’t lauded, the fact that such creative risks were even attempted ought to be; the instinct of innovation is what has pushed Headie and drill so far and so quickly.
Whether it’s Shae’s Universe laying velvety vocals over drill beats or the Harlem Spartan star Blanco, stepping outside the comforts of his crew’s usual sound to engineer his own Brazilian baile-funk inspired bounce, it’s clear that drill’s self-perception is totally different to that of its predecessors- namely grime. Rather than the hard borders and unbending rules about what constitutes the genre, drill is more accommodating to those outside and doesn’t demand all those inside adhere to its strict regimen and this progressive spirit that has cultivated a scene that is as exciting as anything else happening in UK music and is even making waves internationally. As well as it’s creative affliction, drill’s literal wanderlust has seen its energy harnessed by artists in the States; UK producers 808Melo and AXL Beats in particular have helped introduce (or reintroduce) a whole new sound to our cousins across the pond. Take a look at the production credits of a Popsmoke project for example and you’ll see UK beatmakers have created the soundtrack to the streets as far afield as Brooklyn and given the hip-hop scene over there a renewed energy.
October 9th, the slated release date for Headie One’s debut album Edna, will be a landmark date for drill. It’s bittersweet that it will come in as biggest drill release since Popsmoke’s posthumous album Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon, but it’s also poetic in a way; the naming of Pop’s album is almost like a correspondence between the two, a directive from one frontman to another. Headie needn’t be encouraged toward high aspirations though, his career so far shows that it’s his natural inclination. Whatever stratospheric levels he ascends to, for him and for drill, it’s only up from here.
