‘Unmasking the masked’ (2020) is a social documentary series about UK Drill artist and the negative impact the media have. This project is a behind the scenes of the life of these artists by giving a platform to an upcoming UK Drill artist, to raise his voice and tell his story. The misconducted narrative that the media paint is that all UK Drill “inspire kids to commit crimes” Said in the headline of this UK newspaper, the Sun: “CRIME RAP-DOWN Ban violent rap and drill music to stop kids getting inspired to commit crime, Tory Mayor candidate says” (Clark, N. 2018). Although it is fair to argue that the lyrics usually consists of violent imagery, as the artists usually have been affiliated with London gangs, the media do not seem to understand that creating this style of music raises awareness of the negative impact of gangs and knife crimes in its own way. As S. Halls states “Images are very powerful and can be ambiguous and carry more than one meaning, sometimes contradictory, oppositional ones. There is the denotative, literal level of meaning and the connotative meaning(s).” (Hall, S. 2013:235). I believe this citation from Stuart Hall could also be applied to the imagery lyrics create, in particular UK Drill lyrics, because more time than other the actual narrative for these UK Drill artists are using this genre of music to tell their stories and leave the gang behind and make honest money. Which is seen throughout this music genre with lyrics such as; “Banning drill, you're making the situation worse. Might as well give them life or put them in a hearse. Guy could've been rapping. But now he's still packing.” (Krept & Konan 2019). Saying that due to the fact YouTube kept taking his music videos down he has to go back to the gang life just to feed his family.

Due to COVID-19 my initial photographic series with audio had to be adjusted, there are less of my photographs then I originally planned, as well I have mixed the audio with the images to make it more accessible during these times, and changed it to be able to create a final project while in lockdown. ‘Unmasking the masked’ is mixed media documentary series. Displayed together are audio interviews with photographs to create a stop motion video that accompanies the interviews. As well, the photographs are a mixed of my own images (one video in particular, Interview with Reekz) and archival images (Introduction and Interview with Ralph Prichard).

‘Unmasking the masked’ is a multimedia experience. In attempts to reconstruct people’s minds to seeing two perspectives to this “Violent” music. “There was violence before Drill. If we stop Drill right now, is it going to end? Drill is being used as a scapegoat. We need to tackle the situation with alternative routes. We need support. We need to invest in our communities. Invest in things that will help these young kids, teach them new things, how to do other things. Stopping them from doing things they like, when music is a way out, is not going to help the situation.” (Krept, 2019).

Click on Images below to view the videos.