When OFB is mentioned, the first rappers that probably come to mind to a UK drill fan are Bandokay, Double Lz, and SJ. After all, they were considered the OFB trio by The Guardian; hell, they released two mixtapes under the name OFB (Frontstreet and Drill Commandments). And that isn’t to count their other achievements in music, despite SJ being sentenced to life for murder alongside NPK members in 2020; Bandokay and Double Lz have gotten several singles, even their two mixtapes, into the UK Singles Chart and UK Albums Chart, respectively.
Go a bit further and you’ll find the “original” OFB members: Headie One and RV. They too have impressive achievements in music: Headie One’s debut album, Enda, peaked at number one on the UK Albums Chart, while his 2020 release “Ain’t It Different” featuring AJ Stormy and Stormzy peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart. On the other hand, RV had his mixtape Drillers And Trappers 2 alongside Headie One peak at number 21, which isn’t bad.
Go a little bit further, and you’ll find members of OFB that receive barely any media coverage under their rap names — assuming they have any in the first place — including Boogie B, Kash and others. Thus, we shall figure out: who are these members of OFB that were “forgotten” by the media?
Despite Kash seeming like a newcomer to OFB— his first song on all music platforms, named “Vacation”, was released in 2021 — this seems to be farther from the truth; his first song — featured or not — was “Youngers From Farm”, which featured RV (back then, going under Young RV) and was released in 2011.
Looking up something along the lines of “Kash Tottenham” or “Kash 17” on YouTube will lead to a channel named KASHFMD17. This YouTube channel includes 15 songs with Kash as the main artist — of those, 9 are from a mixtape titled Kash In, Kash Out — and one where he is featured in a song from Headie One (going under Headz back then). These songs are dated between 2012 and 2015.
But that isn’t the end of Kash’s musical career. Far from it.
Picking up from where KASHFMD17 left off is several songs hosted on PACMANTV, a video platform used by UK rap artists since its creation in 2007. Kash’s releases on PACMANTV comprises 5 music videos between 2015 and 2016, among them a video with Young Uncs (now Uncs) called “Don’t ride”. Two others are collaborations with RV (“Virus”) and Headie One/Headz (“Off your melon”), both released in 2016. During this time, Kash probably received a jail sentence; an April 2016 tweet reads “free my n****s B, S [maybe referring to Natty, another member of OFB]” before pinging Headie One and Kash. It was retweeted on the accounts of the latter three, perhaps confirming (or, at least, acknoledging) that Kash had a jail sentence at the time.
Kash would later switch platforms to Pressplay Media, where he continued to release music videos in 2017 and 2018; among them is a collaboration with Zone 2’s PS — titled “Things On Things” — and his collaboration with other OFB members, titled “Bruck It”. It is mentioned on Kash’s Spotify that, around this time, “unfortunate circumstances” (probably another jail sentence) occurred that resulted in several setbacks.
In September 2021, Kash would appear in a video on his Instagram that showed him exiting HM Prison Coldingley, located in Sussex (his first post on the account was in August, which could mean he was released at that time). He would soon return to music under the name Kash One7, releasing “Vacation” in November and “Sirens” in December. The following year would see him being featured in “Bully” by Kush (where he is featured alongside Double Lz) and “Manager” alongside Dezzie and Dsavv. It seems that, by now, Kash has gone back on track on his music career; let’s hope that nothing will stop it now that he’s back from prison.
Compared to Kash, Boogie B (or “Boogie Bando”, as he’s referred to in songs by the OFB trio) does not seem to have that much of a musical career. Besides the aforementioned “Bruck It” — which is only on YouTube — there appears to be two songs on his Spotify; “Why.O.I” appears to be a song that he released, while “Crazzy Crazzy” is probably from a different artist.
But that’s besides the point, as music’s not what he’s known for.
On 18 February 2018, Lewis Blackman, aka Dotz and Dotty and a member of the Peckwater gang — part of the 51st alliance in Camden — was stabbed to death in Kensington. By February of the next year, 4 teenagers would be sentenced to jail, 3 being convicted for murder and another for manslaughter. Boogie B, however, is not explicitly named as being involved in the murder in news articles nor in any judgements regarding the case itself.
So, why do UK drill fans note him as being involved in the murder?
For starters, a post on Boogie B’s Snapchat story from 14 February 2022 — later posted on Reddit roughly 12 hours later — shows a picture of a shotgun (with a slang word for a shotgun being a “dotty”, probably a reference to Dotty’s nickname) alongside a caption of emojis that are crying and laughing at the same time.
Could it be assumed that Boogie B was involved in Dotty’s murder solely because of this post? Probably not. On the other hand, though, it wouldn’t make sense for someone to randomly post an image of a shotgun on social media.
It should now be worth turning our attention to [2020] EWCA Crim 193 (R. v Williams) — an appeal of the case regarding Dotty’s murder — and to Demario Williams, who is noted as having delivered the fatal stabbing that killed Blackman. It should also be worth it to turn our attention to OFB’s “Next Up?”, which includes the line “Free Boogie Bando, he got locked for murder/Pissed, bro was a well know [sic] lurker”. Given that Demario was also convicted of murder (and also had 5 convictions— including 3 for possession of a knife — in 2016 and 2017), it could be assumed that Demario Williams is Boogie B.
It should also be noted that, around the same time the appeal was published (6 February 2020), a post was added to Bandokay’s Instagram account (now deleted) that said that Boogie B won his appeal and that he’d be home “sooner dan u [sic] think”. Also of note is that a commentary of the above case was later published in March 2020 in The Journal of Criminal Law, which concerns the limits of self-defense and defense of property.
We thus turn back to the question raised earlier: why is Boogie B linked to Dotty’s murder? I hope that the above provides an answer to this question.
In short, Kash and Boogie B provide two very different — and possibly contradictory— views of OFB. One is that of drill fans, and is that of a musical group whose goal, as with any other group, is to make it big; the other — and the one that the media seems to have taken — is that of a gang that sends vile disses to its opponents through drill music and that, by extension, whose songs should be taken down in order to prevent any bloodshed. (To the latter point, I note that a paper in The Sociological Review states that UK drill rap broadcasts violence instead of causing it.)
