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Technology

Drill music with positive lyrics is more popular than negative songs

By Chris Stokel-Walker

18 November 2019

Smoke Boys

Smoke Boys is a UK drill group

Primary Talent International

Drill music, a form of hip hop known for its gritty lyrics, has been criticised by police for encouraging gang violence, but a new analysis shows that songs with positive lyrics are more popular on YouTube.

Bennett Kleinberg and Paul McFarlane of University College London analysed 550 YouTube videos by 105 London-based drill music artists, using machine learning to investigate how the tone of a song’s lyrics changes.

Every word in each song was captured and given a sentiment score based on its …

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