Curated playlist
Hip-hop genres
- Jerk (music genre)Jerk is a hip-hop microgenre that grew up on the internet and took shape in New York City in the early 2020s. Writing for the British magazine The Face, music journalist Kieran Press-Reynolds described its sound as "fidgety rhythms,…
- HexDHexD is a style of electronic music built on one blunt idea: take a song and damage it on purpose until it sounds like a corrupted file. The name comes from a collective called Hexcastcrew, whose members described their work as casting…
- Punk rapPunk rap fuses punk rock with hip-hop, plus trap, heavy metal and lo-fi. Its songs are short and distorted.
- Rage (music genre)The song "Miss the Rage" turned a word for moshing into a genre name. Trippie Redd longed for mosh pits in lockdown.
- Internet rapInternet rap, also called online rap, began as hip-hop that traveled through the blogosphere in the late 2000s. The British magazine Dazed once said of Lil B, "he's the father of 'Internet rap' and probably follows you on Twitter". The…
- Memphis rapOne drum machine, the Roland TR-808, became the signature tool of Memphis rap.
- DigicoreDigicore is music that teenagers built in bedrooms and traded through Discord and SoundCloud.
- Jewish hip-hopBefore Eminem, pretty much the only white rappers were Jewish, said Josh Norek of Hip Hop Hoodíos.
- Hardcore hip-hopHardcore hip-hop's anger was not only aimed at rival crews. Public Enemy and KRS-One aimed it at political systems.
- Cloud rapCloud rap got its name from a castle in the clouds. Lil B described the image in a 2009 interview.
- CrunkcoreCrunkcore mixed screaming, Southern hip-hop beats and dance music. Critics scorned it, yet it fed hyperpop.
- Jerkin'Jerkin' dance, by one founder's account, began as the anti-dance.
- Trip hopThe name trip hop did not exist until a journalist typed it in June 1994.
- Gangsta rapGangsta rap first went by a different name: reality rap. Schoolly D and Ice-T said they described a world they knew.
- Hip houseThe Beatmasters answered a rival's hip house claim with a song. Tyree Cooper had called his 1988 record the first.
- Miami bassMiami bass, the hip hop style, was known on the streets as booty music.
- Rap metalIn 1987, Anthrax became one of the earliest bands to deliberately mix hip hop and heavy metal.
- Freestyle rapIn 1980s hip-hop, a freestyle was written down, not made up on the spot.
- Trap musicTrap music is named after a building where drug deals happen. The Atlanta sound later reached pop charts worldwide.
- CrunkCrunk, a hip hop style, began in Memphis strip clubs. It later put songs at the top of the Billboard Hot 100.