Toronto drill is the city's version of drill rap: dark, sliding 808s, sparse and tense beats, and lyrics rooted in neighbourhood life. It grew out of the same family as Chicago drill and UK drill, but over the last decade it has become its own thing, with its own slang, its own producers and its own sound. This guide explains what the style is, where it came from, how it compares to UK drill and the rest of Canada, and how to read the lyrics.
Drill started in Chicago in the early 2010s as raw, hard street rap over menacing beats. Around the middle of the decade, London artists took the style and changed it: they slowed the drums down, made the bass slide and glide, and built off-beat, bouncing snare patterns. That UK sound travelled fast online.
The 6ix's version took influence from both. From Chicago it kept the bluntness and the focus on real life on specific blocks. From the UK it took the sliding 808 basslines and the bounce of the drums. Toronto added its own slang, which leans heavily on Caribbean, especially Jamaican, patois, plus references to specific neighbourhoods across the city.
The result is music that's cold and heavy but still has a groove. These records often sound like they were made for a car at night: lots of low end, minimal melody, and room for the voice.
Here's what you'll usually hear on a drill track from the city:
If you're interested in making these beats yourself, see How to Make Drill Beats.
Toronto had street rap long before drill. Neighbourhoods like Jane and Finch, Regent Park, Scarborough and Rexdale produced artists who documented life there in the 1990s and 2000s, and many of those artists came from Caribbean families. That tradition of telling it like it is in a heavy Caribbean-inflected voice is the base that drill was built on.
In the mid-2010s, as UK drill spread on YouTube, Toronto artists started recording over drill beats. The style caught on quickly, partly because Toronto's slang and the UK's slang share Caribbean roots, so the delivery fit naturally. Through the late 2010s the sound grew a real audience, and mainstream Toronto artists, including Drake, borrowed from its sound and slang, which brought more attention to the scene.
For the bigger picture of how the city's rap grew, read Toronto Rap Scene 2026: Sound, Culture, History.
The two are close relatives, and producers in both cities trade ideas constantly. The differences are mostly in feel:
| UK drill | Toronto drill | |
|---|---|---|
| Slang | London slang, roadman terms, Caribbean influence | Heavy Jamaican patois influence, Toronto-specific terms |
| Bass | Sliding 808s, often very melodic | Sliding 808s, often darker and heavier |
| Mood | Bouncy, sometimes playful | Colder, more ominous |
| Delivery | Flows built tightly around the drums | Flows that mix drill cadence with melody |
These are tendencies, not rules. Plenty of Toronto tracks sound like London ones and the reverse.
"Canadian drill" covers drill made anywhere in the country, including Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver and the cities around Toronto like Brampton and Mississauga. Toronto is the centre of it, by size and by influence. Other Canadian scenes often have their own flavour. Montreal, for example, has a lot of French-language and bilingual rap. But when people say "Canadian drill," they usually mean music that sounds like the Toronto version or was influenced by it.
Drill lyrics can be hard to follow if you didn't grow up around the slang. A few things help:
If you want to write in the style, see How to Write Drill Lyrics & Hooks.
A lot of newer Toronto music blends drill rhythms with dark trap atmosphere: the drill drums and slides, with heavier, more cinematic melodies and sung hooks. Young Hadene, a Haitian-born, Toronto-based artist on Str8hitsRecords, works in that space. His latest album, They Took Me Down, is on the music page. For the full breakdown of how the two genres differ, read Dark Trap vs Drill.
Is Toronto drill the same as UK drill? No. It grew from UK and Chicago drill but has its own slang, mood and delivery.
What tempo is drill from Toronto? Usually around 140 BPM, felt in half-time.
Why does the Toronto sound use so much patois? Much of Toronto's rap community has Caribbean roots, and Jamaican patois has shaped the city's slang for decades.
Is the genre only about violence? Violence comes up, but so do loyalty, pressure, ambition and survival. The best records are about the whole life, not just one part of it.