Sexy Drill: A Beginner’s Guide

By Leo Troy

Drill music is one of the most versatile genres within rap, from its explosive beginnings in Chicago by the likes of Chief Keef and Lil Reese, to its bass-heavy UK interpretations. Now there’s New York drill, aggressively ingrained into the legacy of Pop Smoke. Across all of these regional variations, the realities of life and violence in poverty are expressed starkly within this genre. Experiencing this hardship doesn’t leave much time for pleasure – it’s hard to be joyful when your priority is on surviving on a day to day basis. Enter Sexy Drill, ushering in a new era of hedonist fun in rap.

Sexy Drill was founded by producer and rapper Cash Cobain in 2022. Taking the same hi-hat patterns of New York drill, adding some unique bass effects with soul and R&B samples, he constructed the blueprint. His lyrics reflect this smoother tone and they are largely dedicated to sex and fantasies. When describing Sexy Drill in an interview for MixMag, Cobain said: ‘Instead of rapping about killing each other, mine is about having a good time, having sex, meeting somebody you like and saying to them in all so many words what you want to do to them. It’s a groove where you can dance and move your body.’ The music comes out of a renewed period of sexual freedom. Locked indoors for years during the pandemic, the yearning for the nightclubs and night-outs of yore has set the stage for the sensual pleasure of Sexy Drill.

His partner in crime is Chow Lee, the self-proclaimed ‘sexiest n**** alive.’ His songs are a flurry of punchlines, each one made to make you blush more and more.In his song practice! Lee boasts; ‘She told me to take her on a date, I'm freaky, I order pussy at the steakhouse,’ amongst other vulgarities too hot to print. Even if these bars are tongue-in-cheek, a genuine passion shines through. On settings! he raps ‘But trust I’m a gentleman with it/And I love all my feminist women.’ He often puts the woman’s pleasure first, such as asking what the girl wants before sex; ‘Tell me how you wanna lay, you want me to eat it or you wanna make out?’ he croons in practice!.  There is an emphasis on doing what the woman finds enjoyable in Lee’s song Ms. Beautiful V; “She told me she like it like that, okay baby, let me rewind it.’

Rap is a genre marred by misogyny and the objectification of women. It sadly is a pervasive theme in rap and doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. Sexy Drill puts an emphasis on mutual pleasure, flipping the history of rap on its head. A new wave of female rappers have also adopted this new sound, from the likes of Baby Osama’s autotune jams to Ilham’s sultry bops, who provide a sex-positive outlook from a female perspective that was previously lacking in rap music.

For a more mainstream example of this genre, look no further than Jordan Adetunji’s Tik-Tok megahit KEHLANI. The sound sticks close to the Sexy Drill playbook, with the patterned drums and the humming bass. The lyrics are tamer than Cash Cobain or Chow Lee’s horny hymns but are nevertheless playful and flirtatious. The opening line, ‘I like the way your body is,’ is certainly ambitious. The song has been nominated for a Grammy, but this isn’t the only way Sexy Drill has broken through to the mainstream. 

Cash Cobain joined Ice Spice for her tour, who has previously remixed his biggest song Fisherrr. He has also produced for artists as big as Drake and PinkPantheress. This is only the start of his career and only the beginning of Sexy Drill too. It’s a new dawn for sex in rap, one of sensual, mutual pleasure. In the immortal words of Chow Lee; ‘Whatever it takes to make you happy, that’s my goal for me.’