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Inside the battle between Australian drill rappers OneFour and the police
Just a month ago rap group OneFour was on the cusp of making it.
It had millions of streams, major label offers and was about to embark on its first national tour.
Today half the group is behind bars, its manager has been prohibited from interacting with group members and the OneFour tour was shut down after concerns were raised about public safety.
This is the culmination of an unprecedented operation by NSW Police.
NSW Police told Background Briefing they had actively prevented OneFour from taking to stages across Australia. Sergeant Nathan Trueman wants the group's members to know they won't be performing in front of Australian fans anytime soon.
"I'm going to use everything in my power to make your life miserable, until you stop doing what you're doing," he said.
"Every aspect of your life. I'm going to make it uncomfortable for you."
Background Briefing
The war between police and Australia's newest music sensation
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Sergeant Trueman, an officer with the state's high-profile Strike Force Raptor, has been instrumental in the police operation against the group. He's even gone as far as requesting streaming services remove OneFour's music from their libraries — a request that was denied.
According to Triple J's group music director, Richard Kingsmill, the situation is unprecedented.
"I can't think of any Australian artists in the time that I've been following music whose gigs and tours have been cancelled," he said.
NSW Police has gone to extraordinary lengths to stop the group performing and told Background Briefing it was willing to use powers designed to target outlaw motorcycle gangs and terrorists.
But the use of such powers doesn't sit well with former NSW director of public prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery.
"To see this sort of legislation sought to be applied in circumstances like this with a group of people want to come together to play music, that really is a perversion of the original intention of the legislation," he said.
Police believe it is justified, claiming parallels between violent crimes in Western Sydney and the group's lyrics to suggest OneFour poses a threat to public safety.
Who are OneFour rappers and what is drill music?
OneFour is one of the biggest musical acts in Australia right now. Its members have only been releasing music professionally for the past 12 months, but it has amassed 27 million views on YouTube and over 30 million streams on Spotify worldwide.
There are four official members of OneFour: Spenny, YP, J-Emz and Lekks. In music videos, they wear Adidas and Nike tracksuits, occasionally taking it up a notch with designer shirts and bags from Givenchy and Louis Vuitton. Two of the members — YP and Lekks — also wear balaclavas and facemasks.
That's because the courts have issued them with non-association orders, prohibiting them from interacting with each other. OneFour even raps about it.
"Why do you think our faces are hidden? The gang's on strict conditions." — OneFour, Spot the difference
The group is credited with being Australia's first drill rappers. Drill is a darker, grittier genre of hip-hop that can be pretty violent and lyrically confronting.
In the UK, drill has become synonymous with the so-called "postcode wars", with rival groups from different suburbs dissing each other, sparking a cycle of musical retaliations, according to BBC Radio DJ Kenny Allstar.
"A lot of drill artists talk about what they've seen, it's social commentary about what they're around, the content is more raw," he said.
UK police have stopped some drill rappers from performing in public and had their music videos removed from YouTube, and they have convinced the courts to stop artists from interacting with one another and saying certain lyrics.
There's a long history of police butting heads with hip hop artists, according to Dr Rebecca Sheehan, who researches the link between social identity and music at Macquarie University.
"The FBI issued a cease and desist order to NWA," she said. "When they refused to stop releasing their music, stop distributing it and refused to stop playing concerts, local metropolitan police around the United States get the idea to start shutting concerts down for them."
But in Australia, this kind of conflict between law enforcement and rappers is unprecedented.
Lyrics as evidence
In November, before OneFour's tour was cancelled, YP went to Parramatta District Court seeking to vary his bail conditions so he could travel interstate. In the hearing, the crown prosecutor tendered an extraordinary police brief about the group, in which the police claimed its lyrics referred to criminal activity.
In the brief, the police allege OneFour is part of a broader gang representing Mount Druitt and the outer-western suburbs of Sydney, and that it is at war with a group representing Sydney's inner-west, which they say goes by the moniker 21 District.
The police claim these gangs are responsible for acts of violence stretching back to 2011 — including multiple stabbings, public brawls, fights in pubs, and an assault in a shisha bar.
Here's how the police brief describes the greater-western Sydney gang:
"The individuals are primarily male and aged approximately between 15 to 20 years. The majority of individuals involved have been described as of 'Pacific Islander' appearance."
The police brief quotes lyrics as evidence OneFour is associated with this gang and its criminal activities.
"21 what, one got knocked, hah! I guess that makes them 20."
— OneFour, The Message.
According to the brief, these lyrics and other OneFour tracks reference the murder of a member of 21 District in Parramatta.
"You can definitely draw a comparison between the lyrics and offences that have occurred," Sergeant Trueman said.
This connection is something OneFour denies. The group's manager, Ricky Simandjuntak, said its music told stories from the streets, but that making a literal link to criminal acts was wrong.
"It's pure honesty about what they see and struggle with on a day-to-day basis," he said.
"Art is open to interpretation, you don't have to take everything literally, it's meant to make you feel something."
When YP, who wrote the lyric, heard it was being used as evidence, he was disappointed.
"That sucks, I just came up with it one day in my room," he said.
"I thought it sounded cool, hey? I was like, 'yeah it's a sick line!"
Music is a way to move forward, according to J-Emz.
"Us rappers, you know what I mean? We've gotten out of that," he said.
The others agree.
"If someone makes a movie or a video game, it doesn't mean the video game or the person that made it is telling them to go do this," said Spenny.
"We're changing our lives, let us do what we need to do to become better people."
Using lyrical content as evidence was disturbing to Kingsmill.
"The world can be a really dangerous and unpleasant place to be in," he said. "So artists have got to express that and talk about it and reveal it to their listeners and their fans.
"It's no different from literature, music cannot be taken literally."
But the police disagree and Sergeant Trueman believes OneFour's music is inciting violence.
"We can't reduce the risk by any other means, besides cancelling the concert," he said. "Essentially, we're saying that the music that they're promoting is inciting violence."
OneFour's record
In July 2018, two members of OneFour, Lekks and YP, were arrested after a pub fight in Rooty Hill.
A court found Lekks got into an argument with two drunk patrons over the pokies and was kicked out. He returned soon afterwards, this time with YP and another associate of the group.
YP and the associate then assaulted the two patrons. YP used a wooden chair leg that he had brought with him, hitting one of the men three times in the head.
They were charged and pleaded guilty. YP was released on bail.
The judge in the case said the two drunk victims were making "racial comments, perhaps extending to slurs", but that the assaults were "appalling" and "vicious".
These court cases were lurking in the background when OneFour announced its first national tour in November to much fanfare.
It announced four dates across Australia and one show in New Zealand. They were backed by Live Nation, the biggest music promoters in Australia.
It was a huge moment for the group and a chance to turn its online virality into real-world money, success and fame.
The tour that never was
The court granted YP's bail variation, letting him travel for the tour on the condition that his mum travelled with him. But this victory for OneFour was short-lived.
A few days after his hearing, the first show on the tour, in Melbourne, was cancelled.
Triple J's Hack program obtained a letter sent from Victoria Police to the Melbourne venue, threatening a review of their liquor licence if the show went ahead.
Sergeant Trueman confirmed to Background Briefing that NSW had been in touch with interstate colleagues about OneFour's concerts. Victoria Police confirmed that it did meet with the venue, but said any decision to cancel events was made by the event organiser and venue operator.
A few days later, the Adelaide performance was scrapped. SA Police declined to comment on a series of questions asked by Background Briefing.
The entire national tour was eventually cancelled, with statements from venues blaming "unavoidable circumstances".
OneFour was more direct and pointed the finger squarely at NSW Police.
"This sets a dangerous precedent in police ultimately determining which artists can and can't play at music venues in Australia," a statement from the group's management said.
How Raptor went from hunting bikies to rappers
In 2009, following a brutal bikie brawl at Sydney Airport, NSW Police created Strike Force Raptor, a unit dedicated to cracking down on outlaw motorcycle gangs. Since then Raptor has put away some of Australia's most notorious bikies, from the Hells Angels to the Comancheros.
But recently it has turned its sights to OneFour. Raptor is working with the newly established Strike Force Imbara, made up of detectives and analysts, to investigate the feud between the greater-west and inner-west groups and their links to hip hop artists such as OneFour.
Sergeant Trueman explained the history of this apparent gang war.
"Initially you had small acts of assaults, but then it started to develop and get bigger, to the point where we've now had public place stabbings, we've had drive-by shootings, we've had large affrays in the public eye," he said.
To the police, the cancellation of concerts and the disruption of OneFour's music careers aren't controversial. They are the kind of tactics the strike force would have used against motorcycle gangs.
"If the Comancheros started singing a song and trying to call out and provoke the Hells Angels, and they wanted a concert, the public would expect us to shut that down," said Sergeant Trueman.
.jpg/11785536 "Strike Force Raptor (file photo).")
And for the first time, NSW Police confirmed its role in actively stopping OneFour's concerts.
"We are shutting down their concerts, but it's to stop the violence. We haven't had it since the concerts have been shut down," Sergeant Trueman said.
"I want these kids to succeed, I want them to go ahead and do something, but while there's violence I can't allow it."
NSW Police has previously said that it just provides advice to venues, and it's ultimately the venue's responsibility whether the shows go ahead. But Sergeant Trueman made it clear that police requests made it impossible for OneFour concerts to be financially viable.
"I provide all the information to the venues and they'll say things like, 'Oh, how many police am I going to need to get this event to go ahead?' And we're saying, 'Well, you need X amount of police'," he said.
"The cost of the tickets are never going to cover the amount of police they'll need to try and safely run an event like this.
"I'll do that for every event in New South Wales until the violence stops."
But shutting down concerts isn't the only way police are exerting pressure on OneFour.
On the morning before the ARIA awards at The Star casino, J-Emz was handed an exclusion order by police banning him from entering The Star until further notice.
So that evening, instead of pulling up to the ballroom overlooking Darling Harbour and rubbing shoulders with Australian music's biggest names, the group gathered at their recording studio.
"They could have served it whenever," J-Emz said. "They probably got news that we were at the ARIA barbecues and parties."
Sergeant Trueman told Background Briefing that Strike Force Raptor could go even further and use laws that give police extremely broad powers to control a person's travel, associations and even their internet use, so long as police can say the restrictions will stop serious crime.
The Serious Crime Prevention Orders were passed in NSW in 2016 and are normally used against bikie gangs and terrorists, but the use of similar laws by UK police against drill rappers has Sergeant Trueman interested.
"You look at London, they're implementing Serious Crime Prevention orders," he said.
"That's something that we have here in our back pocket we could potentially use."
Mr Cowdery said he wasn't aware of these laws ever being used against someone who wasn't associated with terrorism or outlaw motorcycle gangs.
"Those are really the categories of people for whom this legislation was intended," he said.
"What we're seeing is legislation which might arguably have been justified for the prevention of very serious crime in the community being subsumed, being distorted and applied to people who want to play music."
The Aftermath
Only one show on the tour went ahead, in Auckland, and even then only one of OneFour's members made it to the stage: Spenny.
YP was in prison, J-Emz was held in immigration detention upon his arrival over prior convictions, before being deported, and Lekks, who had been jailed earlier in the year, was represented by his brother who covered his face with a t-shirt.
But even though the group had been shut down, separated, deported and jailed, its legal problems weren't over.
When group members they arrived back at Sydney airport police officers from Strike Force Raptor were waiting for them.
They handed OneFour's manager, Ricky Simandjuntak, an official warning. He was told that if he was seen consorting with, or even communicating with, the two remaining OneFour members who weren't in prison he would be committing a criminal offence.
NSW laws normally used to disrupt serious organised crime were now being used to stop him from seeing or communicating with the artists he represented.
Back in the area
OneFour members started their music careers at the Mount Druitt Street University, a Ted Noffs Foundation-funded youth centre complete with a recording studio.
Mount Druitt is one of the most disadvantaged suburbs in the country. Its unemployment rate is 11 per cent, nearly twice the state average.
Upwards of 90 per cent of residents of the area identify as having a non-Australian ancestry, and more than 60 per cent speak a language other than English.
It is a suburb that has faced its fair share of stigmatisation from the media.
SBS's controversial documentary series Struggle Street was set in Mount Druitt. It was accused by the local Mayor of being "poverty porn" and criticised by residents.
For the young people at the Mount Druitt Street University, OneFour is the biggest thing to come out of the area.
"Mount Druitt had such a bad name for itself," one young girl said. "And soon as OneFour came in, everyone wants to be here and they've gotten rid of the bad name."
The way OneFour has captured the attention of youth in the area is no surprise to Winnie Dunn, a Tongan-Australian writer who grew up there.
"To see OneFour come to prominence by telling their own stories and really getting the nuances of what it means to grow up as a Pacific Islander in Mount Druitt," she said.
"Pacific Islanders in Australia for so long have been starved for representation, the only representative we have at the moment is Chris Lilley, a white guy who puts on brown face.
"It is going to be really sad for me to see that if the police do win and stop OneFour from ever having a viable career, they stop generations of Pacific Islander Australians ever having careers that are outside of the stereotypes of being a security guard or being a footballer."
Sergeant Trueman said he knows it's hard for young people to grow up in suburbs where opportunities are scarce and he would be happy for OneFour members to continue to pursue their music careers.
But before he lets up, he wants to see an end to violence between the rival groups of youths, and he'd like the content of OneFour's music to change.
"Why can't they sing about something else?" he asked.
"It's tough to live in Mount Druitt, sing about that. Speak about how brilliantly beautiful your wife is.
"I don't know, I'm not a songwriter."
Before YP was taken away to a cell in Oberon Correctional Centre he said OneFour would be back.
"I'll continue to write music, even behind those walls," he said.
"The day is coming soon where all four of us artists will be there on stage together."
Credits
- Reporter: Osman Faruqi
- Editor: Scott Mitchell
- Executive Producer: Alice Brennan
- Supervising Producers: Ben Sveen and Gina McKeon
- Researchers: Meghna Bali and Alex Tighe
- Sound Producers: Leila Shunnar and Ingrid Wagner
Topics: hip-hop, music-industry, music-awards, internet-culture, police, laws, mount-druitt-2770, sydney-2000, melbourne-3000, new-zealand, adelaide-5000
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