For rapper Jerome Misa - aka J Emz - having police walk into his room unannounced had become so normal he didn’t even think it was "that bad".
"There was a time period where I was staying in a garage back at my old place when I did stay with my parents and [the police would] just come and lift the garage [door] up, walk in, have a walk around my room and shit like that," he told The Feed.
J Emz is one of the founding members of the drill group ONEFOUR. They started making music together in 2014. Source: SBS
Who is ONEFOUR?
J Emz is one of five performers in the Australian drill rap group.
The other members are Spencer 'Spenny' Magalogo, Pio 'Y' Misa, Salec 'Lekks' Su'a and Dahcell 'Celly' Ramos.
With 730,300 monthly listeners on Spotify, 318,000 subscribers on YouTube and millions of views of their music videos, ONEFOUR is one of the biggest hip-hop groups in Australia.
They are also the focus of a new Netflix documentary, ONEFOUR: Against All Odds, which charts their rise from Mount Druitt, historically a disadvantaged area in Sydney, to making music with some of the biggest artists in the world, like Australian rapper The Kid Laroi.
The documentary documents their relationship with the police - who claim their music incites violence - and how this has impacted their ability to perform.
Gabriel Gasparinatos, who directed the documentary, told The Feed there was a heightened police presence at its Sydney premiere at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival last month.
Filmmaker Gabriel Gasparinatos filmed the documentary over the course of four years. Source: Getty / Don Arnold/for Netflix
"I think it's quite an intense overreach from the police to set up such strict security measures at a film screening," he said.
A spokesperson for South by Southwest declined to comment on the police presence.
A NSW Police spokesperson told The Feed police were at multiple events during the festival.
"NSW Police facilitated a high-visibility operation for the entirety of the SXSW festival event in Sydney, the premiere was just one of these said multiple locations."
Spenny, Celly and J Emz of ONEFOUR at the premiere screening of the ONEFOUR: Against All Odds documentary. The other two members of ONEFOUR were not in attendance. Source: Getty / Don Arnold/for Netflix
Why have ONEFOUR been under police surveillance?
Despite their popularity and rise, the group has only performed eight live shows in the past six years. They say that’s due to police intervention.
In July 2019, following a spate of street gang-related violence, the group came to the attention of Strikeforce Raptor, an elite branch of the NSW police dedicated to investigating organised criminal groups.
Former commander of Raptor, Detective Superintendent Deb Wallace, said in the documentary police noticed violence between rival Sydney street gangs was escalating.
"We started to hear about some lyrics that ONEFOUR were using that had the possibility of inciting the acts of violence that the street gangs were committing," she explained in the Netflix documentary.
It's been reported the group’s name ONEFOUR is derived from the name of a street gang in Mount Druitt, NF14 (OneFour).
The group has distanced itself from that, and their manager told The Feed their name comes from the year they started working together, 2014.
YP in the film clip for ONEFOUR's song Welcome to Prison. Source: YouTube
"21 What? But one got knocked, ha, I guess that makes them 20."
Detective Chief Superintendent Jason Weinstein, who heads up the NSW State Crime Command, said in the documentary that some of the ONEFOUR members were involved in serious assaults, referring to a brawl at a pub in Rooty Hill in Sydney's western suburbs in 2018.
He said he was concerned about the nature of the lyrics in drill rap.
NSW Detective Chief Inspector Jason Weinstein said he was concerned about the potential impact of ONEFOUR's lyrics on street violence in Sydney. Source: AAP / Joel Carrett
"If you read the lyrics of The Message they are really essentially two groups in an open platform talking about what will happen if those two groups come to each other."
There are other lyrics in The Message that reference violence, including; "Retaliation is a must, ain't no maybe, ifs or buts", and "When things get iffy, then I'm known to wave and just swing my knife".
What have been the criminal charges against ONEFOUR members?
In December 2019 three members of ONEFOUR - YP, Celly and Lekks - were jailed for their roles in the 2018 Rooty Hill pub brawl.
The sentencing judge, Justice James Bennett, said the brawl was sparked by an argument between two groups including "racial comments, perhaps extending to slurs".
YP was charged with reckless grievous bodily harm for beating a man in the back of the head with a chair leg and sentenced to four years in prison with a two-year non-parole period. He was released in December 2021.
Celly was sentenced to 10 years in prison with a non-parole period of six years for hitting a man in the head with a hammer "a number of times", according to Justice James Bennett.
He appealed his sentence and had it reduced to eight years, and his non-parole period reduced to four years and nine months. He was released in June 2023.
Lekks was sentenced to four-and-a-half years with a non-parole period of two years and three months for his role in starting the fight. He was released in January this year and deported to New Zealand.
These weren’t the first criminal charges members of the group have faced.
Why did ONEFOUR’s shows get cancelled?
At the same time Strikeforce Raptor was closely watching the group, ONEFOUR's popularity took off and their music videos started getting millions of views online.
And when the UK hip hop artist Dave, whose debut album that year was topping the UK album charts, toured Australia, ONEFOUR was booked to be the supporting act for his shows in Sydney and Melbourne.
However, they didn't end up playing.
Wallace said police had an obligation to inform the various venues of the potential risks associated with hosting a ONEFOUR show.
"We didn't say they couldn’t perform," she said in the documentary.
"We said we're concerned that if this concert goes ahead the ONEFOUR's [gang members] will show up but also 21 Districts and if they do they're not going to sit there and share jaffas together".
Spenny and J Emz performing in Brisbane, one of the only shows they played in 2019. Credit: Courtesy of Netflix © 2023
Later that year, ONEFOUR announced their first headline tour, playing venues in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Auckland.
In the documentary, J Emz says that within a couple of hours of announcing the tour they were on the verge of selling out.
ONEFOUR's manager Ricky Simandjuntak said in the documentary he received a message from a booking agent saying that Raptor had approached venues in Melbourne and Adelaide.
The Melbourne venue soon pulled out and Simandjuntak said day by day, the remaining Australian venues all pulled out, the only show that went ahead was in Auckland.
Spenny was the only member to perform that show as YP, Celly and Lekks were not able to leave the country due to their upcoming court dates.
J Emz was denied entry to New Zealand on arrival due to his criminal history.
Spenny was the only member of ONEFOUR to perform in Auckland, New Zealand in 2019. The various criminal histories of the other members prevented them from entering the country. Credit: Courtesy of Netflix © 2023
"I felt angry. I can say I get a bit sad sometimes, but at the end of the day, that's what we got to work against.
"And we're going to continue to make sure that we get through this and work as a team."
The Netflix documentary indicates they received a boost in May 2022 when The Kid Laroi got them on stage, unannounced, to perform in front of 20,000 fans in Sydney. It was their first performance in two and a half years.
When asked to respond to the police’s claims that ONEFOUR's music incites violence, J Emz said: "We don't tell people, go do this and go do that.
"We're telling our truth and people can take it how they want, but that's our truth.
"I feel like the reason why we get that much love is because it's real and it’s what we have had to go through.
"That's our life stories and they (the police) can take it how they want."
What is drill music?
Drill music is a subgenre of hip hop that originated in Chicago in the late 2000s. It often contains gritty, violent and nihilistic lyrics.
Central to drill music is authenticity and honesty. Artists are expected to be doing the things they are rapping about and it is frowned upon otherwise.
Professor Jioji Ravulo is the chair of social work and policy studies at the University of Sydney. His research focuses on youth in the criminal justice system.
Professor Jioji Ravulo has done a lot of research in young people in the criminal justice system. Source: Supplied
"Drill music, hip hop and rap is misunderstood because generally people of colour, black and brown bodies are being represented in these particular areas of music.
"And that for a lot of Western white societies is disruptive. It sort of goes against the whites and the normal ways in which we understand music and its lyrics."
Ravulo, who has done a lot of work with youth caught in the criminal justice system, says music is therapeutic for disenfranchised young people.
"Music is therapeutic in and of itself by allowing people the opportunity to express where they're at, to share their lived experience and be understood for what they've experienced in their lives.
"It doesn't actually provoke crime.
"Yes, there is gang violence, but that gang violence was simmering as a result of oppressive structures and systems that continue to play out in our society."
Ravulo commends ONEFOUR on their ability to use music as a way to chart their path out of a disadvantaged upbringing.
"Yet they continue to be maligned and overly scrutinised and subjected to policing powers. That is not helpful."
Rapping with an Australian accent
ONEFOUR's members all grew up in Mount Druitt, which historically has been one of the more disadvantaged suburbs in Sydney.
Speaking to The Feed, J Emz describes it as "a more harder environment than the rest of Sydney".
ONEFOUR and their entourage saying a prayer before one of their performances. Credit: Courtesy of Netflix © 2023
Their song Home and Away compares their life with the life portrayed on the soap opera of the same name:
"Out here we at war with the cops like Brax
But this ain't Home and Away
I didn't grow up 'round all those beaches
But I still got bros at the bay" (Sydney's Long Bay Jail)
Their song Ladz in the Hood contains the line:
"With Ballys (balaklavas) on urchin (searching) like Ned Kelly."
J Emz told The Feed rapping with an Australian accent was hard at the beginning because so many artists that have come before them rap with American accents.
"We gotta sound the way we needa sound so we can stand out from international artists and let people know that we're from Australia."
Looking to the future, J Emz said they're hopeful they'll be able to perform again as the police presence has started to ease.
"It is still a bit of a struggle to perform in our own city.
"We recently got to play at Listen Out (a music festival) and that was still a hassle. But we're glad, we're grateful that we got to perform and hopefully we get to perform more in the future."
