Axl Beats Gave Brooklyn Drill Its Defining Sound, Then Took It to Drake
Brooklyn drill has a geography problem that nobody talks about. The sound that defined New York's 2019 resurgence, the skeletal 808s and haunted piano loops that turned Sheff G and 22Gz into street legends, did not come only from Flatbush or Canarsie. It also came from a bedroom producer in the United Kingdom uploading instrumentals to YouTube while Brooklyn was still figuring out what drill could be. Axl Beats, the London producer behind 22Gz's "Suburban," Sheff G's "No Suburban," Fivio Foreign's "Big Drip," and Drake's "War," helped the borough find its own character before labels chased it. His credits extend to co-production on Travis Scott and Pop Smoke's "Gatti" (JACKBOYS), co-production with Szamz on Pop Smoke's "Showin Off Pt. 2" (Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon deluxe), and production on Polo G's "Clueless" featuring Pop Smoke and Fivio Foreign (Hall of Fame). Kazi is watching him because he built a regional sound from outside the region, with receipts that reached the Hot 100 and RIAA platinum on drill records that still read as Brooklyn.
THE SOUND
An Axl Beats production is instantly recognizable by what it refuses to do. Where other drill producers were layering in UK grime influences or Chicago's sliding 808s, Axl stripped everything down to the studs. The signature is in the negative space: piano melodies that sound like they're playing in an empty stairwell, bass that hits once and disappears, hi-hats that stutter just enough to feel unstable. His tag, a simple "Axl, Axl, Axl", became the calling card for a specific kind of menace, the sound of threat delivered with surgical precision rather than overwhelming force.
Listen to "No Suburban" with Sheff G and the blueprint reveals itself. The piano melody is almost childlike in its simplicity, three notes repeating with the kind of obsessive focus that makes a beat feel less like music and more like a psychological condition. The 808 pattern underneath is spare, almost polite, letting the vocal carry the aggression while the production provides the architecture. Pitchfork framed the record as Sheff G's response to 22Gz's "Suburban," another Axl instrumental from 2016. The 2017 single did not chart on the Billboard Hot 100, but it went viral as one of Brooklyn drill's defining early records.
That same skeletal approach defined "War" with Drake, the track that brought Brooklyn drill to commercial hip-hop's center. Axl did not change his formula for one of the biggest rappers alive. The beat still sounds like it has been stripped for parts, still feels like it might collapse under its own emptiness. On the Billboard Hot 100 dated May 16, 2020, "War" debuted and peaked at No. 52, spending one week on the chart as part of Dark Lane Demo Tapes. Drake adapted to the production, not the other way around, which is the validation every drill producer chases: your sound is strong enough that even a chameleon has to meet you on your terms.
THE RECEIPTS
Axl Beats' discography reads like a timeline of Brooklyn drill's export era. He produced 22Gz's "Suburban" (2016), often cited as an early Brooklyn drill landmark, and Sheff G's "No Suburban" (2017). Fivio Foreign's "Big Drip" (2019) is RIAA platinum and became the uptown counterweight to Pop Smoke's 808 Melo records. He co-produced Smoove L's "New Apollos" with 808 Melo, the template later reworked as Travis Scott and Pop Smoke's "Gatti" on JACKBOYS, where Axl shares co-production credit with 808 Melo. Pitchfork traced his path from YouTube instrumentals to Drake and Travis Scott placements in the same month.
On the numbers: "No Suburban" built cultural weight before chart metrics. It did not enter the Hot 100, but it is widely credited as a founding Brooklyn drill single (the 2020 sequel "No Suburban, Pt. 2" went RIAA Gold with tens of millions of streams, though that follow-up was produced by Great John, not Axl). "War" with Drake peaked at No. 52 on the Hot 100 (May 16, 2020). "Big Drip" with Fivio Foreign is RIAA platinum. Those records map the arc from street-level drill anthems to major-label certifications.
Axl built the pipeline on YouTube, selling cinematic instrumentals online before major placements arrived. Pitchfork documented his late-2016 arrival combining Chicago drill's grim core with UK grime's sliding 808s, and Complex quoted him on tailoring "War" to Drake's mid-trap, mid-drill lane. That distribution model let the sound spread before the industry formalized it, which is part of why Brooklyn drill became a movement rather than a one-off trend.
WHY KAZI APPROVED
Kazi is stamping Axl Beats because he proved a defining regional sound could be engineered from outside the region, and his commercial receipts back it up. "War" peaked at No. 52 on the Hot 100. "Big Drip" went RIAA platinum. "No Suburban" and "Suburban" gave Brooklyn drill its early vocabulary. He did not need to live in the borough to hear what it needed.
Brooklyn drill has fragmented since Pop Smoke's death, with producers adding melody and complexity across sub-scenes. Axl's early catalog, "Suburban," "No Suburban," "Big Drip," and "War," remains influential in Brooklyn drill because it captured restraint and menace without trend-chasing. His beats still read as the template for skeletal drill before the sound went pop.
Kazi is putting the stamp on Axl Beats because he proved that a defining regional sound could come from outside the region, and his commercial success on "War" with Drake and foundational work on "No Suburban" with Sheff G and "Big Drip" with Fivio Foreign established him as a central architect of Brooklyn drill's aesthetic. His instrumentals still define what the sound felt like at its leanest, nearly a decade after he started uploading them from London. That is the receipt.