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trap metal

Trap Metal

United States · 2010s

Intense Dark Epic Sad Dancing

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Description

Trap metal is a fusion of contemporary trap production and the aggression of metal and hardcore.

It typically pairs distorted 808 bass, half‑time trap drums, and rapid hi‑hat rolls with screamed or harshly delivered vocals, down‑tuned guitar riffs (live or sampled), and industrial textures.

Aesthetically, it emphasizes raw intensity, mosh‑pit energy, and abrasive sound design while retaining hip‑hop’s hook‑driven song structures and lyrical cadences.

Themes often revolve around alienation, rage, nihilism, and personal struggle, delivered with a visceral, cathartic tone.

History

How to make a track in this genre

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Influenced by

Trap is a subgenre of hip hop that emerged from the Southern United States, defined by half-time grooves, ominous minor-key melodies, and the heavy use of 808 sub-bass. The style is characterized by rapid, syncopated hi-hat rolls, crisp rimshot/clap on the backbeat, and cinematic textures that convey tension and grit. Lyrically, it centers on street economies, survival, ambition, and introspection, with ad-libs used as percussive punctuation. Production is typically minimal but hard-hitting: layered 808s, sparse piano or bell motifs, dark pads, and occasional orchestral or choir samples. Vocals range from gravelly, staccato deliveries to melodic, Auto-Tuned flows, often using triplet cadences.

Hip hop is a cultural and musical movement that emerged from Black, Latino, and Caribbean communities, centering around rapping (MCing), DJing/turntablism, sampling-based production, and rhythmic speech over beats. It prioritizes groove, wordplay, and storytelling, often reflecting the social realities of urban life. Musically, hip hop is built on drum-centric rhythms (from breakbeats to 808 patterns), looped samples, and bass-forward mixes. Lyrically, it ranges from party anthems and braggadocio to political commentary and intricate poetic forms, with flow, cadence, and rhyme density as core expressive tools. Beyond music, hip hop encompasses a broader culture, historically intertwined with graffiti, b-boying/b-girling (breakdance), fashion, and street entrepreneurship, making it both an art form and a global social language.

Heavy metal is a loud, guitar-driven style of rock defined by heavily distorted riffs, thunderous drums, and powerful vocals. Its musical language emphasizes minor modes, modal (Aeolian, Phrygian) riffing, and energy over groove, often featuring virtuosic guitar solos and dramatic dynamic contrasts. Emerging from late-1960s blues rock and psychedelic experimentation, heavy metal codified a darker, heavier sound with bands like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin. The genre values weight, intensity, and grandeur—whether through plodding, doom-laden tempos or galloping, high-energy rhythms—paired with themes that range from personal struggle and social critique to fantasy, mythology, and the occult.

Metal (often used to mean heavy metal in its broad, umbrella sense) is a loud, guitar-driven style of rock defined by high-gain distortion, emphatic and often martial rhythms, and a dense, powerful low end. It foregrounds riff-based songwriting, dramatic dynamics, virtuosic guitar solos, and commanding vocals that range from melodic wails to aggressive snarls and growls. Harmonically, metal favors minor modes, modal color (Aeolian, Phrygian), chromaticism, and tritone-inflected tension, while thematically it explores power, mythology, the occult, social critique, fantasy, and existential subjects. While adjacent to hard rock, metal typically pushes amplification, distortion, precision, and thematic intensity further, forming a foundation for many specialized subgenres.

Industrial Hip Hop

Industrial hip hop is a fusion genre that threads the rhythmic backbone of hip hop with the abrasive textures, mechanical timbres, and confrontational aesthetics of industrial music. It typically features heavy, distorted percussion, metallic hits, harsh noise layers, and sample collage techniques, while retaining MC-driven vocals or spoken-word cadences. The style leans into sonic extremity: detuned or bitcrushed drums, re-amped breaks, atonal drones, and saturated bass coexist with turntablism, dub-informed space, and politically charged lyricism. Tempos often sit in the 80–110 BPM range, but feel lurching and monolithic due to swung grooves, halting gates, and heavy compression. Lyrically and thematically, industrial hip hop embraces dystopian urban imagery, media critique, and social protest, mirroring its rugged sound design with stark, incisive narratives.

Industrial Metal

Industrial metal is a fusion of the mechanized, abrasive textures of industrial music with the weight, riff-driven power, and aggression of heavy metal. It emphasizes machine-like rhythms, down-tuned guitars, harsh or processed vocals, and extensive use of sequencers, drum machines, and sampling. The sound often evokes dystopian, anti-authoritarian, and techno-skeptical themes, with a tight, repetitive groove that feels both robotic and visceral. Hallmarks include palm-muted chug riffs synchronized to quantized beats, distorted bass and synth layers, and production that foregrounds hard-edged, metallic timbres and found sounds (e.g., factory noise, machinery, alarms).

Nu metal is a crossover style that fuses the weight and distortion of heavy metal with the rhythm, flow, and production techniques of hip hop and contemporary alternative rock. Typical traits include down-tuned, groove-led guitar riffs (often on 7-string guitars), pronounced syncopation, simple but heavy harmonic movement, and a strong focus on hooks. Vocals often alternate between rapped verses, shouted/screamed passages, and melodic, radio-ready choruses. Turntables, samplers, and electronic textures appear frequently, while traditional guitar solos are rare or minimalist. Lyrically, the genre tends toward confessional themes—alienation, trauma, anger, and catharsis—delivered with intense immediacy. Commercially, nu metal dominated rock radio and music television at the turn of the millennium, shaping a generation’s sound with its blend of club-ready beats, mosh-friendly riffs, and anthemic refrains.

Rap metal fuses the rhythmic vocal delivery and sampling culture of hip hop with the high-gain guitars, driving bass, and aggressive drums of metal. Typical tracks feature rapped verses, shouted or sung hooks, syncopated, groove-heavy riffs, and punchy backbeats that prioritize head-nodding momentum as much as mosh-friendly impact. Down-tuned guitars, palm-muted chugs, and start–stop rhythms are common, often paired with DJ cuts, samples, or electronics. Lyrically, the style ranges from social and political commentary to braggadocio and cathartic personal themes. The genre overlaps with rap rock and nu metal, but it leans more toward metal riffing and heaviness than rap rock, and centers rap as a primary vocal approach rather than a secondary color.

Hardcore punk is a faster, louder, and more abrasive offshoot of late-1970s punk rock. Songs are typically short (often under two minutes), propelled by rapid tempos, aggressive down‑stroked guitar riffs, and shouted or barked vocals. The style prioritizes raw energy over technical ornamentation: power‑chord harmony, minimal guitar solos, and tightly locked rhythm sections dominate. Lyrically, hardcore punk is intensely direct—often political, anti‑authoritarian, and socially critical—reflecting a DIY ethic that values independent labels, self‑organized shows, and community‑run spaces. The genre coalesced in U.S. scenes such as Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., New York, and Boston, and soon spread internationally. Its velocity, attitude, and grassroots infrastructure profoundly shaped underground music and paved the way for numerous metal, punk, and alternative subgenres.

Punk rap is a fusion of hip hop and the ethos, speed, and abrasion of punk. It blends shouted or barked vocal delivery, short song structures, and a confrontational DIY attitude with 808-heavy beats, blown-out distortion, and noise-forward sound design. While earlier hip hop had punk energy, punk rap in the 2010s crystallized a distinctly harsher aesthetic: clipped mixes, distorted 808s, industrial textures, and mosh-ready rhythms. The result is music that feels immediate, cathartic, and physical—designed for small rooms, big PA systems, and explosive live shows.

Horrorcore is a subgenre of hip hop defined by its fixation on dark, violent, and occult imagery, delivered through menacing flows, brooding production, and cinematic sound design. It often blurs the line between pulp-horror storytelling and social or psychological commentary, adopting personas that heighten shock value while exploring fear, trauma, or taboo themes. Musically, horrorcore favors minor keys, dissonant intervals, and eerie samples—think detuned pianos, church organs, creaking doors, screams, and snippets from horror films—over hard, bass-heavy drums. The result is an atmosphere that feels claustrophobic and threatening, yet theatrically stylized, evoking the mood of slasher movies and cult horror soundtracks.

Emo rap blends the confessional lyricism and melodic sensibility of emo and pop‑punk with the rhythms, production techniques, and flows of contemporary hip hop and trap. Songs often feature sung‑rap deliveries, heavy use of Auto‑Tune, minor‑key progressions, guitar loops or samples, and 808‑driven drums. Themes typically center on heartbreak, loneliness, anxiety, substance use, and self‑reflection, presented in direct, diary‑like writing. The sound crystallized on platforms like SoundCloud, where artists embraced lo‑fi aesthetics, short song lengths, and highly personal cover art and branding. Emo rap’s crossover appeal brought rock textures back into mainstream rap and helped pave paths for a new wave of genre‑fluid pop, punk‑rap energy, and internet‑native micro‑scenes.

Noise is an experimental music genre that uses non-traditional sound sources, distortion, feedback, and extreme dynamics as primary musical materials. Instead of emphasizing melody, harmony, or conventional rhythm, it focuses on texture, density, timbre, and the physical presence of sound. Practitioners sculpt saturated walls of sound, piercing feedback, metallic clatter, contact-mic scrapes, tape hiss, and electronic interference into works that can be confrontational or meditative. Performances often highlight process and immediacy—improvisation, body movement, and site-specific acoustics—while recordings can range from lo-fi cassette overload to meticulously layered studio constructions. Though rooted in early avant-garde ideas, the genre coalesced as a distinct practice in the late 1970s and 1980s, especially through Japan’s ‘Japanoise’ scene, and subsequently influenced numerous styles across industrial, punk-adjacent, and experimental electronic music.

Metalcore is a fusion of hardcore punk’s urgency and ethos with heavy metal’s riff language and technicality. It is defined by tightly palm‑muted riffs, rapid double‑kick drumming, and frequent breakdowns—rhythmic, syncopated passages written to accentuate impact and crowd movement. Vocals typically alternate between harsh screams or growls and, in many bands, soaring clean choruses—a contrast that emphasizes both aggression and catharsis. Harmony and melody often borrow from melodic death metal, yielding minor‑key leads, harmonized guitars, and hook‑driven refrains. Modern production favors precise editing, dense guitar layering, and punchy drum sounds that keep complex rhythms clear at high intensity.

Punk is a fast, abrasive, and minimalist form of rock music built around short songs, stripped-down instrumentation, and confrontational, anti-establishment lyrics. It emphasizes DIY ethics, raw energy, and immediacy over virtuosity, often featuring distorted guitars, shouted or sneered vocals, and simple, catchy melodies. Typical songs run 1–3 minutes, sit around 140–200 BPM, use power chords and basic progressions (often I–IV–V), and favor live, unpolished production. Beyond sound, punk is a cultural movement encompassing zines, independent labels, political activism, and a fashion vocabulary of ripped clothes, leather, and safety pins.

Sigilkore is an internet-born microgenre that merges the ominous atmospheres of witch house with the bounce and drum programming of trap, the tape-warped grit of Memphis rap, and the granular, reverb-heavy haze of dark ambient. Defined as much by its occult visual language as its sound, the style favors heavy 808 subs, skittering hi-hats, detuned pads, bell and choir timbres, pitched-down or formant-shifted vocals, and lo‑fi processing reminiscent of chopped-and-screwed techniques. Tracks often feel ritualistic and hypnotic, with minor-mode motifs, phrygian inflections, and long reverb tails that blur bar lines. Emerging across SoundCloud, Discord communities, and small collectives, sigilkore thrives on DIY anonymity, esoteric cover art (sigils, runes, glyphs), and a mood that’s simultaneously bleak, ethereal, and aggressive.

Rap rock is a hybrid style that blends hip hop’s rhythmic, rhymed vocal delivery with rock’s amplified guitars, bass, and live drums. Typical tracks feature MC-style verses over groove-heavy riffs or power-chord progressions, often punctuated by turntable scratching, sampled breaks, and big, sung (or shouted) chorus hooks. The harmony is usually riff- and mode-centric rather than complex, while the rhythm section locks to hip hop backbeats or halftime feels. Lyrical themes range from political and social critique to personal angst and party bravado. The style emerged in the mid-1980s and surged through the 1990s–2000s, proving that rap cadences and rock energy could coexist in stadium-sized anthems.

Downtempo Deathcore

Downtempo deathcore is an ultra-slow, hyper-heavy offshoot of deathcore that emphasizes crushing, half-time breakdowns, extreme low tunings, and bleak atmosphere. Instead of constant blast beats or fast tremolo, the style prioritizes spacious, syncopated chugs, sub‑drops, and long rests that make each hit feel catastrophic. Vocals typically lean on deep false‑cord gutturals, tunnel growls, and occasional pig squeals, with lyrical themes centered on nihilism, violence, despair, and street‑level realism. Production often layers 808 subs with kick drums, brickwall‑limited guitars, and sharp china/splash accents to maximize impact. Sparse dissonant leads, samples, and cinematic swells are used to deepen the ominous mood, while the groove remains slow, simple, and tactically punishing.

Rapcore is a fusion of hip hop MCing and the speed, aggression, and riff-driven attack of hardcore punk and related heavy rock styles. It typically features rapped verses, shouted or gang-vocal hooks, palm-muted guitar riffs, breakneck punk rhythms or halftime mosh parts, and a bass-and-drum foundation that alternates between Hip-Hop groove and Hardcore blast. Turntables, sampling, and backline percussion are common, and lyrical themes often center on social critique, street realism, anti-establishment politics, and personal catharsis. While closely related to rap rock and rap metal, rapcore leans more toward the energy and ethos of hardcore punk, keeping arrangements direct and confrontational while borrowing the vocal flow, phrasing, and rhythmic emphasis of hip hop.

Crunkcore (often called "scrunk") is a high-energy fusion of Southern crunk hip hop, scene-era emo/screamo vocals, and glossy, Auto-Tune–heavy dance-pop production. It is defined by loud 808s, ravey synth leads, chant-like hooks, and the juxtaposition of rapped party verses with screamed or growled interjections. The genre’s aesthetic is inseparable from late-2000s MySpace culture: neon visuals, tongue-in-cheek hedonism, and deliberately excessive vocal processing. Lyrically, it leans into parties, alcohol, sex, and irreverent humor, favoring immediacy and shock value over introspection. Its sound is intentionally brash and over-compressed, engineered for instant impact rather than subtlety.

Melodic Metalcore

Melodic metalcore blends the harmonized guitar leads and minor-key melodicism of Gothenburg-style melodic death metal with the breakdown-heavy aggression and song structures of metalcore. It is characterized by dual vocal approaches that alternate between harsh screams and soaring clean choruses, along with tightly palm-muted riffs and double-kick driven drumming. Typical arrangements feature verse–pre-chorus–chorus structures, with a post-chorus hook, a melodic guitar solo, and a climactic breakdown. Tunings are often dropped (Drop C, Drop B, or lower), and guitar parts favor harmonized lines in thirds, pedal-point riffs, and modal color from Aeolian and Phrygian. Lyrical themes usually focus on resilience, introspection, personal struggle, and catharsis.

Digital Hardcore

Digital hardcore is a high‑intensity fusion of hardcore punk’s speed and confrontation with the distorted, overdriven sonics of hardcore techno, gabber, and breakbeat. It is typically characterized by clipped and bit‑crushed drums, blown‑out 909/amen breaks, harsh noise layers, shouted anti‑authoritarian vocals, and an aesthetic rooted in DIY punk and rave culture. The style favors saturation, extreme dynamic compression, sudden structural cuts, and political urgency over harmonic complexity, often resulting in a cathartic, chaotic wall of sound.

Deathstep is an extreme, horror-laden branch of dubstep that fuses the genre’s half‑time lurch and sub‑heavy sound design with the aggression, timbral brutality, and macabre aesthetics of death metal and deathcore. Typically sitting around 140–150 BPM in half‑time, it emphasizes cavernous sub bass, serrated mid‑range growls, blast‑beat‑inspired kick runs, and cinematic, dread‑building intros. Vocals—when present—often borrow from extreme metal (growls, screams) or are sampled from horror cinema to intensify the sense of menace. Compared to brostep, deathstep is darker and more oppressive, prioritizing dissonance, chromatic motion, and percussive violence over anthemics. It thrives in underground labels and SoundCloud circles, with a visual language of decay, sci‑fi horror, and occult imagery.

Aggrotech is a harsh, club-focused offshoot of electro-industrial and EBM characterized by distorted vocals, pounding four-on-the-floor beats, and dark, dystopian themes. Typical tempos sit around 130–150 BPM, with aggressive kick drums, sidechained bass, and sawtooth or FM leads that cut through dense mixes. Production favors saturation, bitcrushing, and heavy compression, yielding a gritty, confrontational sheen. Vocals are commonly shouted or snarled and then processed with distortion, formant shifting, and delay, matching lyrical topics such as cyberpunk paranoia, violence, body horror, and societal collapse. While intensely percussive and minimal in harmony, the genre often borrows trance-like builds and anthemic hooks to maximize dancefloor impact. Visually and culturally, aggrotech is tied to the European goth/industrial club circuit, with militaristic, cyber-goth, and apocalyptic aesthetics appearing in stagewear, artwork, and live presentation.

Rage rap is a high-energy, synth-forward strain of contemporary trap characterized by distorted 808s, fast rolling hi‑hats, and bright, detuned supersaw or arpeggiated lead lines borrowed from EDM. The beats are usually minimal in harmony but maximal in timbre, building intensity with looping motifs, risers, and dramatic filter sweeps. Vocals tend to be shouted or projective rather than whispered, with catchy, repetitive hooks and ad‑lib heavy delivery. Lyrical themes often center on flexing, hedonism, designer fashion, and internet-native lifestyle signifiers. Typical tempos land in the 130–150 BPM range, favoring short, loop-driven structures that explode quickly and end before the energy dips, making the style highly viral and performance-ready.

Southern Hip Hop

Southern hip hop is a regional style of hip hop that arose across the American South and is defined by heavy 808 bass, syncopated drum programming, and a distinctive Southern drawl and slang. It blends club-ready rhythms with storytelling about regional pride, street realities, and everyday hustle. Sonically, it ranges from the minimalist, chant-driven energy of New Orleans bounce to the eerie, lo-fi darkness of early Memphis tapes and the syrupy, slowed textures of Houston’s chopped-and-screwed technique. In Atlanta, it incubated trap’s rolling hi-hats and sub-bass, while Miami pushed party-forward, bass-saturated tracks. The genre emphasizes powerful low end, catchy hooks, and call-and-response energy, and it fostered a strong independent label culture (No Limit, Cash Money) that shaped the modern rap business.

Tearout is an ultra-aggressive, high-energy strain of dubstep that magnifies brostep’s midrange assault into even more explosive drops and relentless, machine-gun bass phrases. It is defined by hyperactive bass modulation, razor-edged growls and screeches, heavy distortion chains, and dramatic switch-ups that keep the drop constantly evolving. The style emphasizes impact over space: punchy kick-and-snare patterns, sub-bass glued to dense mid-bass resamples, and cinematic builds that detonate into 16- or 32-bar drops packed with fills, fake-outs, and call-and-response riffs. While rooted in dubstep’s 140 BPM grid, modern tearout frequently borrows drum-and-bass phrasing and metal-style aggression, making it a festival-ready, crowd-slaying sound.

Hard trap is a high-octane branch of trap that fuses the halftime bounce and 808-centric weight of hip hop with the sound-design aggression and build–drop architecture of festival EDM. Typically sitting around 145–160 BPM (often 150 BPM in halftime), it features seismic, often distorted 808 subs, razor-edged screech leads borrowed from hardstyle, and explosive, big-room drops. Arrangements emphasize tension-and-release with cinematic risers, snare rolls, and crowd-commanding vocal chops or hype shouts. The result is trap’s swagger scaled up for main stages: mosh-pit energy, punchy drums, and maximalist synth work designed to hit hard on large sound systems.

Deathcore is an extreme metal fusion that combines the low-tuned riffing, blast beats, and guttural vocals of death metal with the breakdown-centric groove, rhythmic syncopation, and mosh-oriented structures of metalcore. Expect relentless intensity: deep growls, pig-squeals, dissonant tremolo lines, chromatic runs, gravity blasts, and sudden tempo drops into crushing breakdowns. Modern deathcore often layers atmospherics (pads, choirs, or orchestral elements) over hyper-tight, down-tuned guitar work for a cinematic, apocalyptic feel. The style is performance-driven and physical—written as much for the pit as for headphones—yet many bands fold in technical riffing, odd meters, and ambitious song forms.

Dirty South is a regional style of hip hop from the American South defined by heavy 808 bass, swaggering grooves, and gritty storytelling delivered with Southern cadence and slang. Sonically, it blends booming low-end, snappy claps/snares, rolling hi-hats, and minor-key synths or soul/blues samples. The mood ranges from menacing and nocturnal to triumphant and club-ready, with hooks that are chantable and often call-and-response oriented. Lyrically, the genre foregrounds street realities, hustling, regional pride, car culture, nightlife, spirituality, and survival. It embraces local production aesthetics such as Miami bass’s sub-pressure, New Orleans bounce’s party energy, Memphis’s dark lo-fi menace, and Houston’s chopped-and-screwed slow-motion vibe.

Electronicore is a fusion of post-hardcore/metalcore and electronic dance music. It blends down-tuned, chugging guitars, double-kick breakdowns, and screamed/clean call-and-response vocals with club-ready synths, sidechained pads, risers, and drop-centric song structures. Typical tracks juxtapose verses rooted in metalcore energy with EDM-style builds and explosive drops that can reference trance, electro house, or dubstep. Production is as central as performance: sequenced arpeggios, supersaws, wobble/growl basses, and glitch edits are arranged alongside live drums or tight sample-reinforced kits. Lyrically, electronicore keeps the emotive intensity of post-hardcore—introspection, catharsis, and youth-culture themes—while adopting EDM’s hook-forward choruses and festival scale.

Experimental Hip Hop

Experimental hip hop (often called avant-rap or left-field hip hop) pushes rap beyond conventional song forms, sound palettes, and production techniques. It hybridizes boom‑bap and contemporary hip hop rhythms with ideas from industrial, noise, IDM, electroacoustic music, and free jazz, favoring timbral risk‑taking, collage, and abstraction over radio‑oriented polish. Producers and MCs in this style disrupt expectations with unusual meters, asymmetric loops, microtiming, extreme dynamics, and heavy sound design (distortion, granular and spectral processing, tape manipulation). Vocals may range from conventional rapping to spoken word, chant, screams, or heavily processed deliveries. The result foregrounds texture, mood, and concept as much as groove and lyrical content.

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