Bermudian gangs are posting hip-hop “diss” tracks online to taunt and intimidate one another, according to police.

However, an authority in the United States said the tracks appeared to be typical of the art form, and unlikely to indicate actual intent to carry out threats.

The Bermuda Police Service (BPS) confirmed it was aware of the videos, with Assistant Commissioner Martin Weekes stating that officers were assessing any potential connection between the YouTube videos, rising gang tensions and the recent shootings.

Multiple music videos have been posted online in which island rappers threaten the lives of their rivals, sometimes even referring to them by name, and boast about their violent capabilities.

Certain releases, many of which offer high audio and visual production standards, also prominently feature Bermudian road signs in a nod to specific gang-affiliated areas.

Hip-hop has a long history of musical feuds, perhaps the most famous of which involved New York rapper The Notorious B.I.G. and his Californian counterpart Tupac Shakur.

Seen as figureheads of the 1990s East Coast/West Coast rivalry, the pair traded increasingly aggressive barbs via song.

Both were eventually murdered by unknown gunmen, Shakur in September 1996 and his adversary six months later.

Charis Kubrin, a professor of criminology, law and society at the University of California, Irvine, cautioned that lyrical threats were “par for the course in your average gangsta rap video”.

To link the videos with actual gunplay, Professor Kubrin said, “is like saying that these rappers are living the stuff they write about and engaging in the acts they describe”.

“Rap, and particularly gangsta rap, has a history of call and response not just with the audience, but between the rappers themselves who are speaking to each other,” she said.

Professor Kubrin linked the threatening aspect of the lyrics to longstanding black American cultural practices such as “playing the dozens”, in which participants find inventive ways of insulting each other.

“The vast majority of the time it never goes anywhere,” she said, describing what she had seen in the Bermudian videos as “textbook”.

“Because a lot of rappers use gang language, the assumption is that they are real life gang members. The may be, but they also might not be.”

Professor Kubrin said there was a tendency in the US of prosecutors “treating rap not as artistic expression, but treating lyrics as confessions to crime”.

“The thing is, in the US at least, that no other form of expression is treated in this way by the courts.”

Pastor Leroy Bean of anti-gang group Cartel said that social media provided an ideal platform for those who wished to embarrass or provoke their rivals in the modern day.

“The message is more profound than saying the same thing in person, because it expands across boundary territories and can be constantly repeated,” he added.

“You don’t want just that person to hear it, you also want everybody else attached to them to hear the message that you’re sending out.”

Pastor Bean also warned that “words stir wars”.

“That’s what’s happening,” he said. “A lot of the lyrics are talking about disrespecting and shooting people.

“Words have a spirit behind them, and if it’s a spirit of anger then it stirs the situation. Most of them don’t truly comprehend that.”

Assistant Commissioner Weekes criticised the videos’ “disturbing images” along with their “equally disturbing and distasteful lyrics”.

He added: “We are working with the Department of Public Prosecutions’ Office with a view to determine if any offences have been committed in the production and distribution of these videos.”

Anyone with any information on these videos can call the BPS on 295-0011 or the Crime Stoppers hotline on 800-8477