The mayor of New York, Eric Adams, wants social networks to censor drill music songs and videos, considering that this genre related to rap is partly behind the rise in violence in the city.
The New York mayor’s call comes after the murder last weekend of local artist Jayquan McKenley, 18, who was shot after leaving a recording studio in the Brooklyn district.
This event is added to previous ones that the authorities relate to gangs and drill, a style marked by often violent verses that were born in Chicago during the past decade and have gained great popularity in other cities and countries.
“I had no idea what the drill was, but I called my son and he sent me some videos, and it’s alarming,” Adams said this Friday during a press conference, in which he defended that social networks have to take measures to curb its spread.
The New York mayor, who has made security his top priority amid an uptick in gun violence across the United States, said he intends to meet with social media companies to make it clear that “they have a civic and corporate responsibility “.
“We kicked Trump off Twitter because of what he was saying and yet we are allowing music, gun shows, violence to continue on these sites,” the Democratic politician lamented.
Adams, a former police officer, said he also wants to meet with drill artists to discuss how their music is fueling violence in many American communities.
This week, the Brooklyn prosecutor, Eric González, had already warned in an interview with the local channel Fox 5 that “drill rap videos are fueling violence between rival gangs”, after several recent shootings in the district that the authorities link with artists of this genre.
According to González, “the music itself is not the cause of the violence, but it is fueling the desire to retaliate” by gang members.
The authorities denounce that in many of the songs clashes and quarrels between groups are addressed, accompanied by videos in which weapons and threats abound, which end up triggering fights and shootings.