Damned by Drill

In March 2022, a prosecutor trying a 10-person conspiracy to murder case at Manchester Crown Court read out some rap lyrics. They had been scrawled on a piece of paper police seized from one of the defendants’ houses when he was arrested: “I move gassed up when I got my ’chete, aimed straight for the heady, trying to put a pagan boy on tele.” These lyrics, the prosecutor said, not only helped prove the defendant’s guilt, but the guilt of all 10 boys on trial.

Ademola Adedeji was one of those ten. He is, in his own words, a “tall, handsome Black man,” nicknamed Stormzy for his physical likeness to the rapper. Ademola loves music, but it was his best friend John Soyoye who was known for his aspiring rap career under the name MD. John and Ademola were close, going to school and church together, but in November 2020, John was killed in Kenyon Lane, Moston, a suburb just north of Manchester city centre.

John was popular, and many were left devastated by his death. A conversation on Snapchat between some of John’s friends soon moved to the messaging app Telegram, where one boy, Jeffrey Ojo, set up a chat group called “MDs World [crying emoji].” A total of 10 of John’s friends joined the group, and in a series of 345 messages, they shared their grief at losing their friend and anger towards his attackers.

Ademola was one of the boys who joined the Telegram chat, seeking solace with others who had known and loved John. Aged 17 at the time, it was in this group where he sent the 11 fateful messages that changed the course of his life. 

Guilty by association

The case, named the Manchester 10 or M10 case, is complicated, not least because the ten boys were tried under archaic and confusing conspiracy laws. In legal terms, a conspiracy means an agreement between two or more people to carry out a criminal act, whether or not the crime ends up happening or going to plan. In this case, the 10 boys were all charged with conspiracy to murder, but no murder had taken place. 

The prosecution argued that a number of people who knew each other to different degrees – some barely at all – were linked together through membership of the Telegram chat. Specifically, they said that these 10 boys were all part of a gang called M40, and that they used the group chat to plot a revenge killing against the rival RTD gang to avenge John’s murder.

The boys and their lawyers state that M40 is not a gang, but a local music group. Some, though not all, the defendants were connected to it in some way, whether that was through being part of the group, or engaging with music made by its members. As the defendants and their barristers often repeated during the course of the 10-week trial, it’s a popular group in Manchester that the well-known rapper Aitch was part of in his early days.

In the end, the jury convicted only four of the boys with conspiracy to murder, and found the other six guilty of conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm (GBH), a slightly lesser charge. This discrepancy is one of the grounds for appeal in seven of the boys’ upcoming appeals hearings which are due to take place on 19th and 20th December 2024 at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London. All seven boys state they are not guilty of their convictions; three boys are appealing both their conviction and their sentence.

Rap and drill evidence in court and racialised charges

Along with the messages exchanged on the group chat, the prosecution also presented evidence relating to the incidents of violence, and rap and drill music found on the boys’ phones or in handwritten notes. 

Jeffrey was one of the four boys convicted of conspiracy to murder. UK law prohibits the public from questioning how and why juries make their decisions, and so it is unclear exactly why Jeffrey was one of the four boys who received the higher conviction and sentence. He believes it’s because of his association with Boy 1 in particular, who had previous convictions for violence and was depicted by the prosecution as one of the ringleaders in the case.

When I speak to Jeffrey via videolink from the prison where he’s currently serving his 21-year sentence, he recalls that the prosecution would often ask him about lyrics another defendant had written. “They used another man’s bars to cross examine you, like you were the one that wrote it,” he says. “They made out like, whatever he’s saying, that’s what you’re doing.” One defendant had released his own music video, which he’d sent round to some of the other defendants. The prosecution said that because they all had the video on their phone, they were part of it, too. “All of Moston has that video on their phone,” Jeffrey says. 

The use of rap and drill music as evidence in British courtrooms has been rising exponentially over the last decade. Between 2005 and 2020, researchers at the University of Manchester’s Prosecuting Rap project found there to be 67 cases involving more than 240 defendants where rap music was used as evidence. In just a three-year period between 2020-2023, similar research shows that more than 250 people across 70 trials in the UK had rap music used against them. 

88% of those defendants are Black or mixed race. In many cases, rap music is used to draw inferences of gang affiliation – Prosecuting Rap’s latest research shows that this is the case in two thirds of trials.

A brief history of music criminalisation 

“We can see that the criminalisation of UK drill is not an exception to the rule of law; it is the rule,” says Adèle Oliver, author of Deeping it: Colonialism, Culture and Criminalisation of UK Drill. It’s a rule dating back far into the history books, she explains, borne of British colonial legacy that has criminalised Black music for centuries.

In Barbados in 1740, for example, the British colonial rulers issued a slave code which prohibited chattel slaves from “using or keeping drums, horns, or other loud instruments.” Similar repression of music occurred in other British colonies – in the mid-late 1880s in Trinidad, British rulers criminalised singing, drumming and, in 1934, specifically banned the four-part ensemble known as tamboo bamboo.

As Dr. Lambros Fatsis, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of London explains: “The “policing” of black music genres has been a persistent feature of ‘policing against black people’ in Britain since the migration of Jamaican soundsystem culture in the UK in the late 1950s. Early examples include police raids that targeted house parties (“blues dances” or shebeens), youth clubs, and other venues where ska, rocksteady, and roots reggae were played.”

Lyrics are not literal

Now, this repression has gripped onto newer music genres, namely rap, drill and grime – in other words, music predominantly made by and for Black and racialised communities. Those who create such music, those who listen to it, and much of mainstream society seem to understand that lyrics are often not literal. As Dr. Quinn of Prosecuting Rap notes: “Within the context of a murder case, the verses might well seem appalling; however, outside the courtroom, radically different interpretive frames open up.” 

Because slang is prolific in drill and rap music, prosecutors often rely on ‘expert witnesses’ to explain to the jury what certain terms and phrases mean. However, many defence lawyers and campaigners have pointed out that these witnesses are by no means experts. Often, they’re police officers who have undergone a simple training course (which campaigners believe is insufficient). In the M10 case, an officer questioned about his knowledge of drill music said he had just used Wikipedia.

The way lyrics are dissected in a courtroom removes them from the artistic expression and performability imbued in the music. Transcriptions are often incorrect or misheard and read out clinically, detaching the words from the rhyme, beat and rhythm of the track.

Many of the lyrics prosecutors referred to in the Manchester 10 case were pulled from defendants’ phones, where they were typed out in a notes app, or in some cases, handwritten on pieces of paper found in the boys’ homes. One of the boys on the M10 trial was asked about lyrics he wrote whilst incarcerated in a young offender’s institution. He had spent much of his time in the YOI working on his bars with music teachers on hand to support. The lyrics used as evidence against him in the M10 trial had been supervised and approved by a worker, who had not expressed any concerns at the time. 

Who are the Manchester 10 boys, really?

Though presented as a violent gang, most of the Manchester 10 defendants have no history of violence at all. This includes Jeffrey Ojo. Once he starts talking, he seems to find it hard to stop. There’s so much he wants to say about the case and the injustices he believes he experienced. He’s calm and softly spoken, even when dredging up the trauma of this trial. He also seems, at times, resigned to his situation, still fighting against the injustices but weighed down by all that’s happened. 

Comparatively, during the trial he barely spoke at all. Jeffrey only came to the UK from Nigeria in 2018, aged 17. There, he had been at boarding school and then lived with his grandmother. He was not, as he says the prosecution stated in court, “out on the streets and surrounded by male-dominated violence” in Nigeria. Instead, he spent most of his time with his female cousin who lived next door, and other female relatives. 

Jeffrey tells me that when he moved to Manchester to live with his mother and young siblings, he went to college twice a week and had a job as a support worker the other three days. He had another paid role hosting his own show on local station Pie Radio. His personal musical preference tended towards afrobeats, but as the new boy in town he would sometimes play drill to fit in, and he didn’t mind it. He would often look after his two little sisters at home, and had been accepted to Bolton university to study engineering.

When he took the stand, he was overwhelmed, confronted by his own face projected onto multiple screens around the courtroom. He struggled to follow what was going on, not just because of the dialect barrier, but because he was so incredulous as to why the prosecution was saying certain things about him and the other boys. He felt that every time he answered a question, his answer would get so twisted that he decided it would be better not to speak much at all.

He tells me that his involvement with M40 was because of his love for music. To him, it had no connection to any concept of a gang – the fact that Aitch was linked to it meant it already had an established name in the area, and he was drawn to it like many others. “If you make music and your name is attached to that, your music gets seen faster,” he explains.

It’s equally heartbreaking and unsurprising that this case has affected him deeply. Of all the things he spoke to me about, one of the saddest reflections was about how he now relates to others. He tells me that when he speaks to his younger cousin and siblings on the phone, he shares one key piece of advice. “The lesson I’ve learnt from all this is, you don’t want friends. It’s so bad to say, but we’re in a country where the law says if you’re friends with someone ‘bad’, you’re bad too. So what’s the point? If you’re gonna be friends with anyone, pick wisely, but in my situation I just wanna keep zero friends now.”

I also speak with Ademola Adedeji. He is considerably more upbeat, sat at a table in a small, plain room at a table wearing a grey prison-issued t-shirt. His hair, I’ve been informed by his lawyer who introduces us on the call, is freshly cut. Now 20 years old, even through the grainy prison video link, Ademola exudes charisma and warmth. He smiles a lot, gesticulates as he speaks, and is extremely polite.

Despite the many witnesses who attested to Ademola’s good character, prosecutors made him out to be a violent gang member. “There were days where I would go home and cry myself to sleep,” he says. “I was so sick and tired of someone saying all this about me when I didn’t have a chance to say what I wanted to say.” I ask him to tell me what he wants people to know about the real Ade. His face lights up. “No one’s asked me that question since I’ve been in jail,” he says.

“One thing I used to love to do was cook with my mum. I used to love eating out with my friends and listening to music. I would listen to everything: Beyonce, Destiny’s Child, Skepta, Stormzy, Frank Sinatra. I used to love playing rugby and basketball, that’s how I would channel my anger, my aggression, my emotions. I used to love reading, and watching films with my mum. I used to love going to church, I used to love singing, playing with my little brothers. I loved doing all the things a normal person would.”

Everyone who knows Ade speaks of him with such love and admiration. Even speaking to him via videolink whilst in prison, it was clear why. He is one of those people who commands the room, even when that room is virtual. He exudes fun and kindness, care and cheekiness in a way that draws you to him. He also has a long list of accolades to his name. Before he was incarcerated, Ade had been head boy at his school, and had been invited to speak in Parliament about a book he’d written that profiled inspiring young men in Moston. Whilst on bail, he received an unconditional offer to study law at Birmingham University, and in prison he’s written another book, has helped to set up a charity, is taking academic classes and waiting to begin a course with the Open University. He’s also become the go-to support person when someone is self-harming or feeling suicidal.

Countless people provided character statements to the court attesting to the wholeness of his personality, from teachers and mentors to family members and friends. Yet it is the prosecution’s depiction of him that remains the dominant narrative. 

Tip of the iceberg

The M10 case is just one example of hundreds of similar instances of young Black boys being charged as gang members and Black culture being used at least in part as evidence of this. Abenaa Owusu-Bempah, Assistant Professor of criminal law and criminal evidence at the LSE, reviewed 30 appeal judgments reported between 2005 and 2020 to evaluate the link between race, gangs and rap music evidence. She found that lyrics and music videos are used almost exclusively against Black young men and boys accused of serious offences in urban areas, usually London.

“This indicates a deliberate tactic, whereby prosecutors are able to draw on stereotypical narratives to construct case theories. In other words, prosecutors can use lyrics and videos to tell a story of a dangerous rapper that reflects long-standing stereotypes about Black males as criminals. In doing so, elements of Black youth culture are conflated with serious offending. We see this also in the link to gangs,” she writes.

The Crown Prosecution Service shows no sign of slowing down its use of conspiracy and joint enterprise charges against Black youth where they are presented as a gang. Despite the multiple reports reinforcing the reality of institutional racism in British policing – including those by the police itself – the countless experts who explain the artistic nuances of rap lyrics, and a growing concern from the British public over the use of rap and drill music as evidence, cases continue to build. 

The Manchester 10 finally have a chance at freedom in a month’s time, and their legal teams remain hopeful. Regarding the legal system itself, however, expectations of any significant changes remain low.