67 release 'Lets Lurk' feat. Giggs — UK drill enters the British mainstream conversation
In 2016, the South London collective 67 (Liquez, Dimzy, Monkey, ASAP, LD, others) releases 'Lets Lurk' featuring the established UK rapper Giggs. The track applies the Chicago-drill production template — pioneered by Chief Keef's 2012 'I Don't Like' wave — to specifically British MC delivery and street-narrative content, with the Giggs feature lending the still-underground UK drill scene the validation of a major UK rap figure. The collaboration is widely treated as the moment UK drill stops being a strictly underground London phenomenon and enters the British mainstream rap conversation.
Why it matters
UK drill in 2016 was operating mostly on YouTube, in a way that the British music industry and the British press were not yet engaging with seriously. 67 had been releasing increasingly visible material from 2014-2015. The Giggs feature on "Lets Lurk" was the kind of cosign that British rap industry gatekeepers could not ignore. Giggs himself, a veteran from the road-rap scene that predated drill, was lending his established credibility to a sub-genre most UK rap commentators were still treating with skepticism. Within two years, UK drill would be the dominant commercial UK rap form, with Headie One, Loski, Russ Millions, Digga D, and (by 2022) Central Cee taking the sub-genre into the international streaming charts. The Brooklyn drill wave (2017 onward) is downstream of UK drill. The whole arc — Chicago to London to Brooklyn to global — runs through 67's 2016 work. The Giggs cosign on "Lets Lurk" is the institutional hinge.
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