Deeping It: Colonialism, Culture & the Criminalisation of UK Drill

By Adèle Oliver

Deeping It analyses drill’s fight against moral panic and its fraught relationship with the police and political authority in the UK, exemplified by constant censorship, racism, and moments such as when a drill duo became the first people in British legal history to receive a prison sentence for simply performing a song.

Policing, policy and criminalisation are the cornerstones of colonial suppression; art, self-expression and collective action are beacons of resistance. Deeping It places drill firmly in the latter category, tracing its production and criminalisation across borders and eras of the British Empire, exploring drill’s artistic singularity but also its inherent threat as a Black artform in a world that prioritises whiteness.

Intervening on this discourse steeped in anti-Blackness, this Inkling ‘deeps’ how the criminalisation of UK drill cannot be disentangled from histories, technologies, and realities of colonialism and consumerism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: 404 Ink
• Release date: Jul 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9781912489794

Adèle Oliver

Adèle Oliver is an artist, scholar, and linguist from Birmingham. She graduated from SOAS, University of London with an MA in Postcolonial Studies after completing an undergraduate degree in Portuguese and Linguistics. Her work, in its recognition of overlooked perspectives, identifies and amplifies side-lined voices in art and popular culture. Adèle’s MA dissertation focused on the production, consumption, and criminalisation of UK drill and its inextricable connection to British colonialism, and concepts of crime. As a Black Brit of Jamaican descent, personal interest drives Adèle’s intellectual commitment to unravelling histories (and subsequent epistemologies) using an acutely critical lens. Outside of her academic work, Adèle is a music producer and artist.