Five styles built on the voice over a beat, or on the bass under it: hip-hop from the Bronx, trap from the South, and three that grew out of London's clubs and pirate radio.
| Style | Where and when | Tempo | Core instruments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hip-hop | The Bronx, New York, early 1970s | Not fixed by the style | Voice, turntables, mixer, drum machine, sampler, synthesizer |
| Trap | Atlanta and the Southern US, 1990s | Typically 140 BPM, felt in half-time at 70; range 100–176 | Roland TR-808 kicks and bass, hi-hats, snares, synths, strings and brass |
| UK garage | London, early to mid-1990s | Usually around 130 BPM | Shuffled drums, sub-bass, chopped vocal samples |
| Grime | London, early 2000s | Generally around 140 BPM | MC vocals, sequencer or DAW, square-wave bass |
| Dubstep | South London, early 2000s | Nearly always 132–142 BPM | Sub-bass, sparse drums, samples; mostly instrumental |
Hip-hop
Hip-hop, or rap, grew up with its culture in New York City in the early 1970s. Rapping is its defining voice; the DJ, turntablism, scratching and beatboxing are its other marks. At a party his sister Cindy Campbell hosted at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx, DJ Kool Herc began stretching the instrumental breaks of funk records by crossfading between two copies of the same disc.
Defining records. The Fatback Band's "King Tim III (Personality Jock)" (1979) is generally taken as the first commercially released rap song. The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" (1979) rapped over a re-recording of Chic's "Good Times" and became a Top 40 single. Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks" (1980) was the first hip-hop single certified gold, and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's "The Message" (1982) opened the way for politically conscious rap.
Production notes. The music began as other people's breaks, looped. When samplers, synthesizers and drum machines became affordable in the 1980s, machines such as the Akai MPC 2000, the Linn 9000 and the Roland TR-808, launched in 1980, became its tools.
Trap
Trap is a branch of hip-hop from the Southern United States; lyrical references to "the trap" appear from 1991, and the modern sound came together in Atlanta. The production is simple, rhythmic and minimal, on synthesized drums.
Defining records. T.I.'s "Dope Boyz" (2001), from his debut "I'm Serious", put the word in the lyric. Lex Luger's production for Waka Flocka Flame's "Flockaveli" (2010) defined the sound, and Katy Perry's "Dark Horse" (2013), with Juicy J, is credited with cementing trap on the Billboard charts.
Production notes. Kick drums tuned with a long decay so they double as the bass line, the sound of the Roland TR-808; crisp snares; hi-hats in double- or triple-time subdivisions; dark synth, string and brass swells over the top. Program it in half-time: a beat at 140 BPM is felt at 70, and the common range runs from 100 (50) to 176 (88).
UK garage
UK garage began in England in the early to mid-1990s. It is defined by percussive, shuffled rhythms with syncopated hi-hats, cymbals and snares, and by chopped, time-stretched or pitch-shifted vocal samples, usually at about 130 BPM. Speed garage and 2-step are its branches.
Defining records. Tina Moore's "Never Gonna Let You Go" in Kelly G's remixes is one of the earliest 2-step records in the speed garage scene. Shanks & Bigfoot's "Sweet Like Chocolate" was the first UK garage track to reach number one in the UK, and Artful Dodger's "Re-Rewind" became a 2-step anthem; both went platinum. Craig David's debut "Fill Me In" mixed R&B with 2-step.
Production notes. The story goes that the tempo came from a DJ playing a 120 BPM American garage house track at 130. Swing in the hats, sub-bass, ragga vocals, reversed drums and spin-backs; the dub mixes strip the vocal down to small cut-up pieces played on a sampler.
Grime
Grime emerged in London in the early 2000s out of UK garage, drawing on jungle, dancehall and hip-hop. It runs on rapid, syncopated breakbeats around 140 BPM with an aggressive, jagged electronic sound, and is made for MCs.
Defining records. Wiley's "Eskimo" and Dizzee Rascal's "Crime" (2000) are among the claimants to the first grime record. Dizzee Rascal's "Boy in da Corner" won the 2003 Mercury Prize. Lethal Bizzle's "Pow!" (2004) was grime's first UK Top 20 single.
Production notes. Early instrumentals were made on accessible software such as FruityLoops and cut to dubplate. The hallmarks, in the words of Fact magazine, are staccato strings, "eski" bleeps and square-wave bass.
Dubstep
Dubstep came out of South London in the early 2000s, with roots in the Jamaican sound-system tradition. It is mostly instrumental: syncopated rhythms, prominent bass lines and a dark tone, at 132 to 142 BPM with the clap or snare usually on the third beat of the bar, so it feels half as fast.
Defining records. Skream's "Midnight Request Line" carried the scene beyond its clubs, and Benga and Coki's "Night" (2007) followed it. Burial's self-titled album was The Wire's album of 2006, and his "Untrue" (2007) was nominated for the Mercury Prize.
Production notes. Leave space: drums drop out, sometimes to silence, then return with a dominant sub-bass. The "wobble" bass is an extended note shaped rhythmically by a low-frequency oscillator moving the synth's volume, distortion or filter cutoff.
Sources
Every date, name, tempo and origin on this page comes from these pages, read on 2026-10-24.