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What is trap music?
The production language that went from a specific Atlanta subgenre to the default sound of global pop in about fifteen years.
The short answer
Trap is a rap style built on Roland TR-808 drum machine sounds — a long, pitched bass drum used as a melodic instrument, rapid hi-hat rolls, and sparse, often ominous melodic material. It originated in Atlanta in the early 2000s.
Where the name comes from
A "trap" is a place where drugs are sold. T.I.'s 2003 album Trap Muzik named the genre, though the sound had been developing before that. The Atlanta scene history is here.
The 808
The Roland TR-808 was a commercial failure when released in 1980 and became one of the most important instruments in popular music. Its bass drum, tuned and stretched until it functions as a bassline, is the single defining element of trap. Almost nothing else about the genre is fixed.
The hi-hats
Rapid rolls, often in triplets, subdividing the beat against a slow tempo. The trick is that trap records are usually around 140 beats per minute but feel like half that, because the drums are on the half-time pulse and the hi-hats carry the speed.
The producers
Shawty Redd and Zaytoven built the early template, Lex Luger and 808 Mafia made it harder, and Metro Boomin made it cinematic. Each generation kept the 808 and changed almost everything else. The producer profiles are here.
Trap and EDM
Around 2012 dance producers began borrowing the drum patterns without the rap, producing a strain sometimes called EDM trap or festival trap. Purists were unimpressed and it made the sound familiar to an audience that had never heard T.I.
Why it became the default
The template is extremely flexible. Strip out the melody and it works under almost anything, which is why trap drums now appear under pop, country, Afrobeats, Latin music and K-pop. It stopped being a genre and became a rhythm section.
Where to start listening
T.I.'s Trap Muzik (2003), Young Jeezy's Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101 (2005), Gucci Mane's early mixtapes, Future's DS2 (2015) and Metro Boomin's Not All Heroes Wear Capes (2018).
Before it had a name
The elements were assembling through the late 1990s in Atlanta and Memphis before anyone described them as a genre. Producers were pitching 808s and programming rapid hi-hats because the equipment made it easy, not because they were building a movement.
The half-time trick
Trap records are typically written around 140 beats per minute but the kick and snare sit on the half-time pulse, so the record feels like 70. The hi-hats carry the perceived speed. That tension between actual and felt tempo is why trap works equally well at a party and in a car.
Melodic trap
Around 2015 the harder template softened. Auto-Tuned singing over trap drums became the dominant mainstream rap mode, driven by Future, Young Thug and the producers around them, and it is what most people now mean when they say a record sounds like rap.
Trap outside rap
The drum programming now appears under country records, K-pop, Afrobeats, Latin trap and mainstream pop. Very few production styles from any genre have been absorbed this completely, and most listeners hearing it have no idea it came from Atlanta.
Frequently asked
Who started trap music?
It developed in Atlanta in the early 2000s. T.I.'s Trap Muzik named it in 2003, with Young Jeezy and Gucci Mane building it out and producers including Shawty Redd and Zaytoven defining the sound.
What makes a beat trap?
A tuned, sustained 808 bass drum used as a bassline, rapid hi-hat rolls often in triplets, and sparse melodic material at around 140 BPM with a half-time feel.
Why is it called trap?
A trap is a place where drugs are sold. The name came from the subject matter of the earliest records rather than from the sound.