the.com/trip hop
slowed-down hip-hop that traded the block for a dimly lit, rain-streaked window
means A genre of downtempo electronic music that fuses hip-hop beats with atmospheric, often melancholy textures drawn from soul, jazz, and dub.
from A 1990s coinage, most often credited to the British music press — the magazine Mixmag is frequently named — describing the moody, slowed sound coming out of Bristol acts like Massive Attack and Portishead. The 'hop' nods plainly to hip-hop; the 'trip' captures the hazy, drifting, almost psychedelic mood, in the sense of a mental journey rather than a stumble. The artists themselves often disliked the label, but it stuck the way press tags do.
- origin city
- born in Bristol, England, early 1990s
- the name
- coined as a joke by Mixmag magazine
- key acts
- Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky led the sound
- tempo
- deliberately sluggish beats built for late nights
- genre disdain
- most artists hated the label entirely
portishead — bristol band formed 1994, defined trip hop with 'dummy' album
massive attack — bristol collective since 1988, pioneered the genre with 'blue lines'
the unfinished sympathy — massive attack's 1998 track, iconic trip hop signature sound
tricky — bristol artist, released 'maxinquaye' in 1995, core trip hop figure