UK Drill is derivative of Chicago Drill, a genre created in the south side of Chicago in the early 2010s. UK Drill was created by the South London group 150 around 2012, when at the time they released songs emulating the sound coming out of Chicago. Before this, UK gangster rap was mostly in the form of Road Rap, which was derived from US Gangsta rap. Along with 150, 67 and Section Boyz were also highly influential early on.

Up until 2015, UK Drill was mostly just an emulation of Chicago Drill but with a London accent. 67 (alongside their main producer Carns Hill) and Section Boyz arguably changed this, with tunes such as Skeng Man and Section’s Sectionly mixtape which led to the rise of a more ‘UK’ sound.

In 2015, crews such as Harlem Spartans, 86 and Zone 2 began to blow up. A notable difference was these crews were using a sound heavily indebted to grime. UK Drill began to take on a much higher tempo and became more energetic. Here onwards, UK Drill would become its own sound and be more of a derivative of Chicago than it is a subgenre.

The genre has been dubbed ‘new grime’ due to the influence.

Note that UK Drill is often confused with grime. They are two distinctively different genres in both their histories and sonically.

For example, compare this UK Drill track (listen to those deep drums and snares, along with the violent lyrical content) with this grime track (has a distinctive electronic sound with none of those trap elements).