NEW YORK — When Angel Reyes helped a friend record his first rap song using a microphone in a cardboard Timberland shoebox, he was just having fun.
“We just were in here playing beats,” he recalled. “Like, it was just natural.”
With a computer and some software, he taught himself to set vocals to background drums, touching up the sound effects electronically.
“I didn’t go to school, nothing. Me and my friends, we just teach each other. Each one, teach one,” Reyes explained.
Five years later, Reyes, 28, is a skilled musical engineer at the center of drill rap: the viral and controversial musical genre that’s taken New York City by storm.
His studio — a small room in his apartment nestled deep within a Bronx public housing complex — has hosted breakout stars including Bouba Savage, Kay Flock, C Blu and Dougie B. Many of them recorded their first songs in Reyes’ plywood sound booth. The tunes, with intense pounding bass and cutthroat lyrics, have racked up millions of streams and views online.
Pioneered by rap star Bobby Shmurda, who served seven years in prison for conspiracy and weapons possession, drill rap isn’t new. But as the music continues to explode on social media, it has earned new criticism from people like Mayor Adams, who points to the links between the hardcore lifestyle the music portrays and real-life violence.
Drill rappers often taunt rivals in their lyrics and videos, pouring fire on gang beefs, NYPD officials have told the Daily News. The New York City scene has been rocked by the deaths of at least three young rising drill rap stars in the last year, leading Adams and others to call for it to be banned on social media platforms.
On Thursday, as rapper teen C Blu was released to his family after more than a month in custody for a Bronx shooting that injured a cop. Rapper Dougie B was detained for more than 12 hours after a gunshot rang out across from the Bronx courthouse.
Just a day prior, Twitter posts showed Dougie B shooting a video with Cardi B. The pair even spoke on the phone with another rapper, Kay Flock, who is currently jailed on murder charges, video shows.
Bronx drill rap stars, C Blu, Dougie B and Kay Flock all spit some of their first verses in Reyes’ studio.
With their success, his magic touch is now in high demand, with rappers knocking on his door at all hours of the day to request studio sessions. Though his name might not appear in the credits, he insists that he likes working on “the backend,” and seeing music he knows he’s had a hand in creating, go viral.
“You don’t see the best chef in a restaurant, he be in the back, cooking up that fire. That’s the role I like. As long as you dancing and I’m watching you dance, and my song is lighting up, I’m good,” he said.
While he still keeps busy at home, he also works at a professional studio in New Jersey, thanks to a connection from his friend, Nicole Racine.
Racine, who goes by ‘Coey,’ is an unseen force behind many rising drill rap stars. The 25-year-old taught herself how to film, edit and upload videos onto YouTube, using a school computer.
Now, she owns and runs the production and promotion company Talk of the Town in Long Island City. Racine hosts a talk show, where she interviews up-and-coming rappers about their latest projects and has almost 100,000 followers on multiple online platforms.
The negative rep the genre gets for the violent lyrics that call out rivals and the parade of weapons in videos is fueled by the labels who offer those artists big money based on the number of views and streams they get, Racine said.
“Y’all sign it, y’all put money behind it, y’all promote this stuff. So it’s really contradicting to the artist, because they think that’s the way to go,” she said. “They constantly see the same cycle working. There’s no one pushing artists in a different direction until they’re signed.”
She works with the young talent, coaching teenage artists through their first interviews, and pitching them to record labels if she feels they have enough passion and consistency.
“I’ve always been a fan of drill music. I like looking for the underdogs,” Racine said. “I like to find artists before they get super mainstream and I go to the labels and show them, ‘Check out this kid.’”
Racine runs a one-stop shop for drill rap hopefuls, grooming them for stardom — they can have headshots taken, she helps them upload their music and videos.
For Reyes, drill rap isn’t about fast cars, boasting about cash and flashing weapons. It’s a tangible way out for young people who want better lives.
Reyes, who sees himself as a mentor to a lot of the rappers whose photos grace his “wall of fame,” said the music keeps kids off the streets — not the other way around.
“I’m older than them, so they’re really like my little brothers. So when I put them in my house to record music, it was to change their lives, get them going,” Reyes said. “Where would some of these kids be without music?”
Brooklyn-born Ahnias Williams, 22, who goes by the name ‘26AR,’ said drill rap turned his life around. Once a promising basketball star, Williams got caught up with the wrong crowd and spent four years in prison on a conspiracy charge. He started rapping behind bars.
“I was rapping about stuff I was thinking about. The pain, the struggle, things I went through,” he said.
When he got out in November 2019, Williams knew what he had to do to keep himself on the right path. “I said, ‘I’m gonna make sure I drop music every week. Till the right person hears me.’ And that’s what I did,” he recalled.
Williams is now signed with a major record label, and his songs have been featured on a list of hits curated by Jay-Z.
“I met a lot of people I never thought I’d meet. I went a lot of places I never thought I’d go. It helped me take my family out of the environment we were in before, stuff like that. Take myself out of that environment too.
“The goal is to make it out however (you can),” he explained.
Fellow Brooklyn rapper Kriston Hedge, 26, who goes by the name "OP," had a similar experience.
“I felt like it just put me in a position to better myself in all different ways.”
Hedge, who grew up in Canarsie and started rapping when he was 18, says his success allows him to pay rent for his disabled mother, care for his young nephew, and fund a side business focused on bulldogs.
“Crime is always going to go on, you just have to try to show the youth how to better themselves so they can help their community,” he explained. “I feel like before you judge, you should try to feel them. Before you say why people are dying, ask how those kids are living.”
Reyes, who aspires to one day own studios in Atlanta, California and New York, had a message for the mayor and others who have denounced the drill rap industry and even called to shut it down.
“I don’t blame him. But you shouldn’t blame the music.”
“Let’s talk trenches, struggles, those days, if he (Adams) had them. Those are the days we living in right now. So we’re trying to find a way off anything. If you can grab a piece of mud and turn it into Bouba Savage, that’s what we’re gonna do with it, if that makes sense Mr. Mayor.
“Nobody really knows this side of the story.”
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