New York City Mayor Eric Adams has announced he will be meeting with rappers and musical artists in the city to try and convince them not to glorify gun violence.
Adams, elected last year to replace former Mayor Bill de Blasio, said he hopes to combat the rise of “drill rap,” a genre focused on feuds and threats of violence between artists. Adams wants to see the genre banned from social media platforms for the sake of young users.
“We pulled Trump off Twitter because of what he was spewing,” Adams said Friday. “Yet we’re allowing music, displaying of guns, violence. We’re allowing it to stay on these sites.”
Adams said he was made aware of the problem by his son, who works for seminal rapper Jay-Z.
“I had no idea what ‘drill rapping’ was, but I called my son, and he sent me some videos,” Adams said. “And it is alarming. And we are going to pull together the social media companies and sit down with them and say, ‘You have a civic and corporate responsibility.’”
Adams intends to take the issue directly to social media companies he blamed for allowing violent content on their sites. The mayor said he would like to see the entire genre removed from such websites.
“We are bringing them in; we are going to show exactly what is being displayed. And we are alarmed by it. We are alarmed by the use of social media to really over-proliferate this violence in our communities,” Adams added.
Adams previously issued a stern warning in the weeks leading up to his start in office. Addressing those expecting to continue riots and looting in the nation’s largest city, Adams was clear: it will not continue.
“Not my city,” Adams, a former police captain, said at a Police Athletic League event at the Harvard Club, according to the New York Post.
“We’re not going to surrender to those who are saying ‘We’re going to burn down New York.'”
