We study Erd\H os's distinct distances problem under $\ell_p$ metrics with integer $p$. We improve the current best bound for this problem from $Ω(n^{4/5})$ to $Ω(n^{6/7-ε})$, for any $ε>0$. We also characterize the sets that span an asymptotically minimal number of distinct distances under the $\ell_1$ and $\ell_\infty$ metrics.