Krept & Konan went to the Houses of Parliament to talk about drill music and censorship

Last week, Krept & Konan returned with new single "Ban Drill", which arrived with visuals directed by Rapman, who penned the award-winning Shiro's Story releases.

Alongside their single, the duo launched a petition to stop silencing drill musicians, "Banning Drill or any type of art is problematic for a number of reasons. It deprives already disenfranchised young people of a voice, it reflects moral cowardice for failing to look straight-on at the reality of marginalised groups on inner-city estates, and it won’t tackle issues caused by poverty, racism, and classism."

Last night (18 June) they joined Dianne Abbott MP to talk about the crackdown on drill music, and were joined by Skengdo & AM, who were sentenced earlier this year for performing one of their songs.

During a Q+A session, Krept said, "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."

Konan added, "We know what it’s like to be in it and want to escape it, and what it feels like to be out of it. I’ve seen my mum get shot, I’ve seen my stepdad die. I’ve been in jail, I’ve been in gangs. Once you step out of it you know that this is not what you are meant to be doing. We want to give people a platform to escape."

AM stated, "With music, we thought "this is it, this is what’s going to change it for us". Because at one point there was nothing, there was no hope - we were going to stick it out for as long as we could, just trying to stay alive. It’s very unfair for the police to be finding strategies to stop our income coming through and it’s almost an incentive to get money another way. They need to be looking at other solutions and allocating money and opportunities in the right places."