Entry · catalog no. 1120
boom bap
/ /ˌbum ˈbæp/ /boom-BAP
noun · The Bronx and New York City · 1980s
✓ Verified
1.
A drum sound and, by extension, an entire production school: a heavy kick (boom) set against a cracking snare (bap), usually sampled off vinyl, swung slightly off the grid, and laid under dusty soul or jazz loops. It describes the dominant East Coast approach of roughly 1988 through 1996 and everything cut in that lineage since. In current use it also works as shorthand for traditionalist, sample-based rap, generally in contrast to synthesized trap production.
“Preemo never left boom bap — that snare still hits like a screen door.”
Origin & Attribution
The phrase is mouth-drum, not critic-speak; rappers said it long before writers did. T La Rock rides it as ad-lib patter over Rick Rubin's beat on 'It's Yours' in 1984, and both KRS-One and Diamond D have pointed to that record as the first time they heard it. It stayed a vocal tic for nearly a decade until KRS-One made it a category with 'Return of the Boom Bap' in 1993, where the word 'return' is doing real work — framing hard drums as something already being lost. It was not coined by music journalists or by the 2010s revivalist scene, both of which inherited it from the Bronx.
1984
T La Rock and Jazzy Jay's 'It's Yours' puts the phrase on record as ad-lib patter
1993
KRS-One's 'Return of the Boom Bap,' September 28, converts the ad-lib into a genre name
2013
Red Bull Music Academy Daily traces the term's route from mouth sound to category
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The Northeast
The Bronx and New York City · 1980s
Spoken by
New York rappers, DJs and beatmakers
$BOOMBAThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady42 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
72/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1984
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@bxgriot
The Bronx, NY
@phillyanne
Philadelphia, PA
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
T La Rock and Jazzy Jay, 'It's Yours,' 12-inch on Partytime Records, produced by Rick Rubin — 1984
song · recorded
■
KRS-One, 'Return of the Boom Bap,' Jive — September 28, 1993
album · released
■
+ Cite a sourceRed Bull Music Academy Daily, 'In Search of Boom Bap' — November 2013
article · published
See also