Ever since its inception in the late 70s’, hip-hop music has grown to include multiple styles and subgenres, such as boom bap, crunk, grime, drill, and trap. The subgenres of hip-hop can be defined by an artist’s lifestyle and their origins, as well as the focus of their lyrics and sound. It can be hard to distinguish the differences between trap beats and drill beats unless you’re an extremely dedicated hip-hop fan. Here are some similarities and differences between trap beats and drill beats.
Origins of Trap Beats and Drill Beats
The genre ‘trap’ came from the drug world, and refers to a type of house that is used to sell drugs. Compared to trap’s drug dealing lyrics, drill is about violence for the sake of violence as the slang term means shooting a person with a gun.
Trap began way back in the 80s’ and proceeded to grow in popularity over the past decade to dominate the contemporary pop music and hip-hop scene. Comparatively, drill is a younger sub-genre influenced by the Atlanta rap scene. Drill started in Chicago around 2011, a city troubled by high gun murder rates. It became known globally the following year with Chief Keef’s anthem, I Don’t Like. The drill sound was also built by artists and producers such as Lil Durk and Young Chop through the use of digital pitch correction software to create cold, alien-like vocals.
Sounds of Trap Beats and Drill Beats
A trap beat tends to be minimalistic without involving many instruments, and usually consists of just a complex hi-hat pattern and synth drums. Drill can follow the same slow boom and rattling hi-hat, but it differs from trap in emphasis and attitude. Lyrics in trap focus on drug use and drug dealing but in drill, they focus on gang warfare and gun violence, and are typically delivered with dark, deadpan, and even murderous vocals to convey a feeling of danger.
In terms of BPM (beats per minute), drill beats fall around 140 BPM. Trap is pretty much the same but can be slightly slower. Although drill is actually a sub-genre of trap, the beats in drill can differ dramatically. While they might retain the classic 808 slide, there are R&B drill beats, melodic drill beats, and even jazz drill beats. As drill is more flexible tempo-wise compared to trap, there are more possibilities in terms of flow. You can expect the variations in drill to grow even more diverse.
Popularity of Trap Beats and Drill Beats
Established as one of the largest sub-genres of hip-hop, trap dominates the hip-hop scene. Meanwhile, drill has been growing in popularity in the past decade, especially in the UK. UK drill combines road rap with the original drill sound from the US, and has influences from the grime genre as well. In recent years, drill has started creeping onto the charts and has influenced major players in the hip-hop scene such as Drake. With the exciting growth of hybrid genres such as R&B drill and jazz drill, the future of drill has much potential for rappers.
Trap Beats and Drill Beats at luke4pres
At luke4pres, we have professional trap beats and drill beats catalogs organized according to BPMs and tags for you to browse at ease. You can listen to individual beats by hovering over the title and clicking on the play icon on the label cover. To learn more about buying online beats at luke4pres, get in touch with us today!