Genre Lens

What is Trip Hop?

Slow, heavy, cinematic and moody. Dusty hip-hop breakbeats at a crawling tempo, dubby bass, minor-key strings or Rhodes and often a haunting, breathy vocal. Rainy-city music.

Electronic70–95 BPM typical
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Listen for
  • slow heavy dusty breakbeat
  • dark cinematic strings or Rhodes
  • dub-influenced bass
  • melancholy atmosphere
Reference artists
Massive AttackPortisheadTricky

Anchors rather than an exhaustive canon — if your track sits near these, this is probably the right label.

Usual tempo 70–95 BPM. Sitting outside that range does not disqualify a track; it just makes the tells matter more.

Easy to confuse with

The nearest neighbours in Electronic, by tempo. If Trip Hop does not quite fit, one of these usually does.

  • Lo-Fi70–90 BPM

    Deliberately imperfect and cosy. Tape hiss, vinyl crackle, muffled dusty drums, jazzy sampled chords and a sleepy swung groove. Made to sit in the background while you study or work.

  • IDM / Experimental80–170 BPM

    "Intelligent Dance Music" — electronic music made for headphones rather than dancefloors. Irregular, intricately programmed drums, odd time feels, unusual synthesis, and structures that refuse to repeat predictably.

  • Chill Out80–115 BPM

    Soft, warm, low-energy electronic music designed to decompress to. Gentle beats, mellow chords, no aggression and no big drop. Ibiza sunset rather than Ibiza nightclub.

  • Synthwave80–118 BPM

    A loving recreation of 1980s film and video-game soundtracks. Gated reverb snares, analog-style arpeggios, neon-bright saw leads and a steady driving pulse. Nostalgic and cinematic by design.