the.com/boom bap
The onomatopoeia that became a genre, where the kick and snare carry the soul.
means A style of hip-hop production from the late 1980s and 1990s defined by a hard kick drum and a crisp, cracking snare, often built on sampled breaks and a loose, head-nodding swing.
from Pure onomatopoeia: 'boom' for the kick drum, 'bap' for the snare crack. The phrase was popularized in hip-hop in the early 1990s — KRS-One released a track and album leaning on the term in 1993 — though the imitation of drum sounds with mouth-syllables is far older, the same instinct that gives us 'rat-a-tat' and the vocal beatboxing tradition. The name simply spells out, in two syllables, the rhythm you hear.
- named by KRS-One
- His 1993 track gave the sound its name
- the formula
- Boom is the kick, bap is the snare
- sampling roots
- Built from chopped funk, soul, and jazz breaks
- golden era
- Defined late-80s and 90s East Coast rap
- MPC powered
- Akai drum machines made the gritty swing possible