Looking back, the dark, claustrophobic brand of UK drill pioneered by Peckham collective Zone 2 in the late 2010s is miles away from the more sanitised and commercial offshoots of the genre that have blown up in the years since. With members facing prison sentences, others fading into obscurity, and the likes of Kwengface and PS Hitsquad only recently finding success with solo pursuits, the group burned bright and fast; but their role in pushing UK drill into the mainstream is undeniable.
“I see our influence in a lot of places, and it’s truly humbling,” PS tells NME over video call following the release of his debut album ‘Life on License’ earlier this month. “Right now there’s hella subgenres of drill, but you’ve gotta evolve with the times, and that’s what post-drill is about. There’s a bit of everything in there.”
Post-drill, a rough conceptual label that’s been attached to PS Hitsquad’s recent creations, takes centre stage on the 26-year-old’s debut. It weaves in the suffocating menace that defined early beats by pioneering UK drill producer Carns Hill, adds bumpy percussive club elements that align with artists like UK jersey drill artist Pozer, and at times lightens things with nods to the crowded, pitched-up textures favoured by new gen rappers like Jim Legxacy.
PS brings these wide-ranging sonics together with a sharp, crisp vocal tone and a commitment to powerful, emotive storytelling. One of several factors that prevented other early UK drill pioneers from cementing firmer, more widely respected positions within British rap culture was a lack of cohesive, thoughtfully constructed LPs or projects. With help from indie label House Anxiety and an ambitious team that includes visionary manager Ian McQuaid (Diplo, Tim and Barry) – “Everyone around me has been pushing me to think bigger,” he says – PS was intent on addressing this scarcity and “building something timeless instead of just another moment”.
He explains: “The last thing I wanted was to just put together a bunch of random songs. I wanted every song to feed into the next one, and into an overall narrative, like chapters in one story. People know bits of my life from headlines or YouTube clips, but they don’t really know what it’s like mentally. The trauma, prison, coming home, getting banged up again, trying to change, fucking up, still carrying certain things with you. I feel like I’ve lived my whole life on license. I wanted people to go through all of that with me.”
The devil is in the detail with PS’ lyrical output; tracks like ‘Induction’ vividly articulate the rapper’s experiences inside, with lines that inject both comedy and hope into the bleakest of circumstances: “I’m rocking prison issue clothing like the newest drip… I’ll be by the fences with my dogs talking about bigger shit“. On ‘Glorified Gangster’, he dissects the contradictions of his character with sharp lyrics like “I be bopping around like I’m not on tag / Still I’m helping out women with their shopping bag”.
Across the album and in conversation, the drive to make the best of a tumultuous situation is clear. PS confronts past mistakes and current attempts to deal with them in lines like “I went to war PTSD for what I’ve done in life” (‘Free Your Mind’), while honest spoken word skits like ‘Equation’ and ‘Frontal Lobe’ (where PS asserts “I’m a different person“) feel like a firm commitment to maturing and prospering.
Still, there are traces of regret, most notably on the highly rhythmic bop ‘Coulda Woulda Shoulda’, where he raps “I coulda been this, I shoulda been that / I coulda still been on the corner… Came out of pen but it coulda been uni / Could be an actor, still hitting movies”.
“When you’re growing up, you spend the whole time fighting to get out of the hood, but now I’m desperate to go back there, and I’m not allowed”
The track’s music video – the work of visual artist and director Billy Howard Price, a close collaborator who’s added a real punch and storytelling edge to the rapper’s visuals in recent months – distils how different things are now for PS. Wearing a bright yellow jacket that cuts across the grey river sloshing behind, he stands on the northern banks of the Thames and looks toward south London, a place he’s currently barred from entering.
“I have massive restriction zones [due to being on license],” he says. “I can’t go to any postcodes beginning with ‘S’. I can’t visit any of my family or friends. Every day when I leave the house I can’t escape the implications of my punishment.”
Right now PS is living in Kent, and initially he’s reluctant to talk about how difficult he’s found that separation from his old blocks, responding unconvincingly: “I try not to notice it.” Eventually he opens up: “It’s weird, ‘cause when you’re growing up, you spend the whole time wishing and fighting to get out of the hood, but now I’m desperate to go back there, and I’m not allowed. Then with prison, you spend so long living by rules, routines and restrictions that parts of it stay with you. You almost have to teach yourself how to live again.”
PS Hitsquad. Credit: Simon Wheatley. Stylist: Shammi Popat
The value of ‘Life on License’ is the honesty with which PS documents this experience of de-institutionalising himself and re-learning how to function healthily. His murky beats, cut-throat vocal tone and long-standing commitment to social documentation ensure a sense of continuation from those heady days of early UK drill that he played such a key role in; but in terms of sonics, world-building, and personality, an impressive evolution has taken place.
“Music’s helped me because it’s somewhere I can actually process everything instead of just carrying it. I’m trying to build something now instead of just surviving day to day,” he says. “I’m not pretending I’ve got everything figured out because I definitely haven’t. But I’m definitely growing up and figuring shit out. I’m trying to move forward instead of being trapped by who I used to be.”
PS Hitsquad’s ‘Life On License’ is out now via House Anxiety.
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