Trap music

• 1. Introduction

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  Trap music was born out of the Atlanta streets, and its name comes from a specific and brutal place: the trap house, a building where drug deals happen. In 1991, lyrics referencing the trap started appearing in hip-hop. By 1999, a new sound had taken shape around those references. By 2019, that sound had produced the longest-running number one single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100. How did a subgenre rooted in the drug trade of the American South come to reshape pop, R&B, reggaeton, and K-pop? And what is it about trap's mechanics, its 808 kick drums and racing hi-hats, that locked itself into the ear of so much of the world?

• 2. The Sound Itself

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  The Roland TR-808 drum machine sits at the heart of trap's signature. Its bass drums are often tuned with a long decay, producing a low frequency rumble that audiences feel as much as hear. Around that kick, trap producers layer complex hi-hat patterns at double-time and triple-time subdivisions, snare drums that crack with precision, and multilayered synthesized drones.

  Tempos in trap typically run around 70 BPM when written, but because producers program the hi-hats in half-time, the felt pulse doubles to 140 BPM. The range stretches from 50 to 88 BPM on paper, which translates to 100 to 176 BPM in practice. That split between written and perceived tempo gives trap its distinctive sense of controlled urgency.

  Two Atlanta producers helped establish this as a signature rather than a quirk. Shawty Redd developed a minimalist, horror-inspired style. DJ Toomp took a melodic, sample-driven approach, drawing from jazz, soul, R&B, gospel, and funk. Together their contrasting methods defined the poles within which trap production still operates. Later, producers would add cinematic strings, brass, woodwind, and keyboard arrangements, building what critics described as a symphonic layer over the deep percussion.

• 3. Southern Roots

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  UGK's "Cocaine In The Back of the Ride" is one of the earliest records linked to the trap lineage, released in 1992 from the group's debut EP, The Southern Way. Later that same year, UGK released "Pocket Full of Stones" from their major-label debut, Too Hard to Swallow, a track later featured in the 1993 film Menace II Society. These records came from Texas, not Atlanta, reflecting how widely the trap's lyrical world already stretched across the South.

  In Atlanta, Lil Jon was among the early producers working in the space, collaborating with acts including Dungeon Family, Outkast, and Goodie Mob. Mannie Fresh came from New Orleans. DJ Paul and Juicy J came from Memphis. The sound was assembling itself from multiple Southern cities before Atlanta consolidated its identity as the genre's center.

  Master P released "Mr. Ice Cream Man" in 1996. T.I.'s 2001 song "Dope Boyz", from his debut album I'm Serious, contains the line "the dope boyz in the trap nigga / the thug nigga, drug dealer where you at". As David Drake of Complex wrote, "the trap in the early 2000s wasn't a genre, it was a real place", and the term was later adopted to describe the music made about that place.

• 4. T.I. Names the Genre

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  T.I. made a direct claim about where the word trap belongs in music history, saying: "I coined the term, it was my second album, Trap Muzik it dropped in 2003. After that, there was an entire new genre of music created. An open lane for each of you to do what you do, and live your lives, on T.V., and be accepted by the masses. The masses have accepted you 'cause I opened the door and you walked through it. Don't forget who opened that door."

  That 2003 album gave the genre its formal name at a moment when trap was starting to gain traction beyond the South. Artists including Young Jeezy, Gucci Mane, Boosie Badazz, Young Dolph, Lil Wayne, and Rick Ross built on the sound through the mid-2000s, producing crossover hits that expanded trap's reach onto mixtapes and radio stations outside the region.

  By the end of the decade, producer Lex Luger had become the sound's primary architect for a mainstream audience. Luger produced more than 200 songs in 2010 and 2011, including Rick Ross's "B.M.F. (Blowin' Money Fast)". His signature: heavy 808s, crisp snares, fast hi-hats, synth keys, and orchestral brass, strings, and woodwind. Luger also produced Waka Flocka Flame's 2010 album Flockaveli and co-founded the hip-hop production team 808 Mafia.

• 5. Drill, Memes, and Crossover

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  Chief Keef's "I Don't Like" generated over 30 million views on YouTube and directly spawned a subgenre called drill, which later split into Chicago drill and a grime-influenced UK drill. Critics described drill's production style as the "sonic cousin to skittish footwork, southern-fried hip-hop and the 808 trigger-finger of trap". Producer Young Chop was frequently identified as drill's most characteristic figure, while Luger's trap style was acknowledged as a major influence on drill's sound.

  "I Don't Like" drew enough attention to prompt Kanye West to record a remix, which appeared on his label GOOD Music's compilation album Cruel Summer. A GQ writer called trap music "the sound of hip hop in 2012".

  By 2016, internet phenomena were accelerating specific trap songs to number one. Rae Sremmurd and Gucci Mane's "Black Beatles" reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 after the Mannequin Challenge spread across social media. In 2017, the Migos and Lil Uzi Vert collaboration "Bad and Boujee" followed the same path, propelled by meme exposure around the lyric "Raindrop (drip), Drop top". Cardi B's "Bodak Yellow" topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 2017. The commercial mechanics of trap had merged with the dynamics of viral internet culture.

  On the 5th of May 2018, Childish Gambino released "This Is America", built on what one description called "the sharp contrast between jolly, syncretic melodies and menacing trap cadences". It debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and was streamed over 65 million times in its first week.

• 6. Pop Absorbs the Sound

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  Beyoncé's 2013 self-titled album contained trap influences on "Drunk in Love", "Flawless", and "7/11". Lady Gaga recorded a trap-inspired song called "Jewels 'n Drugs" for her 2013 album Artpop, featuring T.I., Too Short, and Twista. In September 2013, Katy Perry released "Dark Horse" featuring Juicy J; the song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 by the end of January 2014.

  Ariana Grande incorporated trap elements into her fourth studio album Sweetener in 2018 while keeping her pop-R&B sound. That album won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album. Her fifth album Thank U, Next broke numerous streaming records and placed two singles at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Songs including "7 Rings" spent eight weeks at number one on that chart in 2019. Her sixth album, Positions, was described as largely a trap-inspired R&B-pop record.

  Trap-influenced EDM entered the mainstream in 2013, popularized by producer DJ Snake. Latin trap began to emerge in 2015, with Spain identified as the first Spanish-speaking country to make trap music. The group PXXR GVNG, formed by Yung Beef, Kaydy Cain, Khaled, and producer Steve Lean, was among the earliest acts. The compilation Trap Capos: Season 1 became the first Latin trap LP to reach number one on Billboard's Latin Rhythm Albums chart. In November 2017, a major music outlet noted that Latin trap was fusing with reggaeton, taking on the slow-rolling rhythms of Southern hip-hop.

• 7. Old Town Road and the Record

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  In March 2019, Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" debuted at number 19 on the Hot Country Songs chart before being removed from the chart a week later. A remix featuring Billy Ray Cyrus was released on the 5th of April 2019. What followed was a run unlike anything previously recorded on the Billboard Hot 100: 19 consecutive weeks at number one, surpassing the records previously held by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men's "One Sweet Day" and Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's "Despacito" featuring Justin Bieber. The song also became the fastest to receive a Diamond certification.

  The year 2018 had already marked a shift when, for the first time ever, hip-hop became the most popular form of music in the United States according to Nielsen Data. That milestone coincided directly with the peak years of trap's dominance. In that same year T.I. opened a Trap Music Museum in Atlanta in promotion of his album Dime Trap. The museum was designed, in his words, to acknowledge the most significant contributors to the culture, inform those with less knowledge of the genre, and inspire people from the environments that shaped it. The museum also includes an escape room called "Escape the Trap".

  Since the late 2010s, a rage subgenre has emerged within trap, spearheaded by Playboi Carti, Lil Uzi Vert, Trippie Redd, and Yeat. The genre that once described a specific building in Atlanta now contains multitudes, and its architects are still building.