Speech Acts and Unspeakable Raps

Abstract

Police censor drill rap music based on the claim that drill artists incite violence. In this article, I provide a framework for evaluating whether an instance of drill constitutes a speech act of incitement. I also introduce an alternative speech act that drillers may also be performing, drawn from sociological work on drill artists. I show that those who claim drill incites violence (such as the Metropolitan Police) must meet the explanatory and justificatory burden of showing that the speech act of incitement (rather than something else) has been performed, and that it may often be very challenging to meet that burden. Finally, I argue that where that burden is not met, police interventions in drill would constitute a form of illocutionary silencing and discursive injustice. Drill artists are owed careful consideration of the illocutionary acts they perform in their music – more careful than police assumptions about incitement have been.