‘We’re not fun police’ for gangster music ban

London police have a new tactic — banning a group of young criminals from making violent music.

Yonas Girma, one of the banned gang members.

Police have a new tactic to stem the crime surge in London — banning a group of young criminals from making violent music.

The five members of the gang known as 1011 — aged ­between 17 and 21, from west London — were hit with landmark criminal behaviour orders preventing them from making music that glorifies violence and gang culture.

“Drill” music has been cited by London Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick as an aggravating factor in the city’s explosion in violent crime, which has led to more than 70 murders this year and a 22 per cent rise in knife crime.

It usually involves graphic ­depictions of violence, including stabbing, shooting and bashing, between gangs, with gang members using the lyrics to taunt rivals and fuel tensions.

The five youths hit with the ban on Friday had earlier been jailed for conspiracy to commit violent disorder after they pleaded guilty.

In November police stopped the five men who were armed with machetes, knives and baseball bats and were on their way to take on a rival gang.

In court police played seven examples of the group’s music videos, which had been viewed millions of times on the internet.

They included lyrics such as: “Clock me an opp (opposing gang member), wind down the window, back (get) out the spinner (revolver firearm) and burst (shoot) him. I put bullets in ­numerous guys like how come the opps ain’t learning?”

The orders handed down in court on Friday mean the group, jailed for between one and five years, is banned from performing live music or posting it to social media if it contains lyrics inciting violence or mentioning death or injury. They must seek authorisation from the police to make music in public and to publish any new music videos.

They are also barred from ­referring to gangs or individuals, even by pseudonyms and from ­referring to specific postcodes.

British gangs have used postcodes as a symbol of local pride when fuelling turf wars.

The head of the metropolitan police’s Trident gang unit, Detective Chief Superintendent Kevin Southworth, said it was the first time police had succeeded in gaining such detailed behaviour orders relating to music.

“Their lyrics referenced real events that had happened and made threats that further violence would take place,’’ he said.

“If they break the conditions of the (order) they will be back ­before the courts.

“We’re not in the business of killing anyone’s fun, we’re not in the business of killing anyone’s artistic expression — we are in the business of stopping people being killed.”

Last month London police asked Google, the owner of YouTube, to remove about 60 drill music videos from the website.

Ms Dick said the genre of music described stabbings with “joy and excitement” and promoted extreme violence against women.

“Most particularly, in London we have gangs who make drill videos and, in those videos, they taunt each other,” she said.

“They say what they’re going to do to each other and specifically what they are going to do to who.”

The Trident gang unit has amassed a collection of more than 1500 drill music videos that it uses to draw intelligence.