Hip-hop has its own vocabulary, and much of it is used loosely. This glossary defines the terms that appear across Hip Hop Island, in plain language. Where meaning shifts by region or generation, we say so.
- 808
- A drum machine, the Roland TR-808, whose deep bass drum became a signature of trap and much of modern hip-hop.
- A&R
- Artists and repertoire: the label staff who find and develop artists.
- Ad-libs
- Short vocal interjections placed behind or between the main lines of a track.
- Afrobeats
- An umbrella term for popular music from West Africa and its diaspora that has become one of the world’s biggest genres. Not to be confused with Afrobeat, the 1970s style associated with Fela Kuti. Many Afrobeats artists move between rapping and singing.
- Amapiano
- A South African dance style built on house music and log drums. Rolling Stone Africa reports that it has competed with hip-hop for South African audiences.
- Bars
- Lines of rap, counted in musical bars. “Sixteen bars” is a standard verse length.
- Battle rap
- A competitive form in which two rappers trade verses and a crowd or panel decides who won. Leagues such as FlipTop in the Philippines are built around it, and freestyle leagues such as Spit Mix in Mexico work in a similar way.
- Beat
- The instrumental a rapper performs over. A producer who makes them is a beatmaker.
- Boom bap
- A production style built on hard drum breaks and sampled loops, associated with New York in the late 1980s and 1990s. The name imitates the sound of kick and snare.
- BPM
- Beats per minute, the tempo of a track.
- Breaking
- The dance of hip-hop culture, often called breakdancing.
- Chaabi
- A popular music of North Africa whose name means “of the people”. Rolling Stone MENA says Morocco’s new rap wave mixes rap with chaabi.
- Cloud rap
- A drifting, atmospheric style with hazy production and a softer vocal delivery.
- Cypher
- A circle of rappers who take turns, either live or in a recorded session.
- Diss track
- A song that attacks another artist. Roxanne Shanté’s “Roxanne’s Revenge” (1984) is often cited as an early one.
- DJ
- The person who selects, mixes and manipulates records. In early hip-hop the DJ, not the rapper, was the centre of the party.
- Drill
- A darker, harder style that began in Chicago and was reshaped in the UK, with regional variants since. Typically menacing in tone, with sliding rhythms.
- Feature
- A guest appearance by another artist on a track.
- Flow
- How a rapper rides the beat: rhythm, speed, stress and the placement of words.
- Four elements
- MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti: the pillars usually named for hip-hop culture. Some add knowledge as a fifth.
- Freestyle
- A rap performed spontaneously, or without a fixed song. In some scenes the word also means a written verse delivered over a beat without a hook.
- Grime
- A British genre that grew out of London’s garage and jungle scenes in the early 2000s, with fast beats around 140 bpm and rapid-fire MCs.
- Hiplife
- A Ghanaian style that blends hip-hop with highlife, pioneered by Reggie Rockstone.
- Hook
- The repeated line or chorus that carries a song, as opposed to the verse.
- Mahraganat
- Egyptian electronic street music, described by Arab America as electro-shaabi that fuses street energy with trap production.
- Maqam
- The Arabic system of melodic modes (plural maqamat). Some Arabic rap producers build beats on them, according to Rolling Stone MENA.
- MC
- Originally “master of ceremonies”, the person who hosts and moves a crowd. Now commonly used for a rapper, especially one admired for live and lyrical skill.
- Mixtape
- A free or informal release, often outside the label’s official schedule. In practice the line between a mixtape and an album is blurred.
- Monthly listeners
- A Spotify measure of how many unique people listened to an artist over the previous 28 days. It is not a total of fans.
- Mumble rap
- A label often applied to rappers with a slurred or melodic delivery. It is contested and sometimes used as an insult, so we use it only when a source does.
- Neo perreo
- A term DJBooth credits Chile’s Tomasa Del Real with coining, for a newer take on perreo.
- Perreo
- The reggaeton dance and club style, and the music made for it.
- Producer
- The person who makes the beat and shapes the sound of a track. Streaming services and video descriptions list producers in the credits.
- Raï
- A popular music from Algeria that Rolling Stone MENA says Moroccan rappers now mix with rap.
- Reggaeton
- A Latin urban genre built on the dembow rhythm. In Latin America rap and reggaeton often sit side by side.
- Reparto
- Cuba’s street-music movement; the Havana artist Wampi is one of its leading figures, according to our profile.
- Sample
- A piece of an existing recording reused in a new one. Sampling is central to hip-hop production and a frequent subject of rights disputes.
- Shaabi
- Egyptian working-class popular music. Rolling Stone MENA says shaabi rap is dominating Egypt.
- Sheng
- Nairobi slang that mixes Kiswahili with English and other languages. Kenyan rap has used it since groups such as Kalamashaka.
- Shuochang
- A traditional Chinese storytelling form. According to an AP report, rap returned to Chinese media in 2018 after being rebranded under this name.
- Tarab
- An Arabic musical tradition of emotional intensity. Rolling Stone MENA says artists draw on it while experimenting with modern production.
- Trap
- A style named after the places where drugs were sold in the US South. Musically it is defined by rolling hi-hats, heavy 808 bass and sparse melodies.
- Turntablism
- DJ technique that treats the turntable as an instrument, including scratching, which moves a record back and forth under the needle.
- Underground
- Artists working outside the mainstream industry, often self-released or on independent labels.
- Verse
- The section in which a rapper tells the story or makes the argument, usually 16 bars.
- Visualiser
- An official video of looping or abstract imagery for a track, cheaper to make than a full music video.
A note on language
Hip-hop slang changes quickly and differs by country. A word that means one thing in New York may mean another in London or Lagos, and many scenes have their own terms in their own languages. Where a profile on this site quotes a local term, we explain it in place.
The history of how these scenes spread is in From the Bronx to Everywhere, and our method for finding artists is in the listener’s guide. Found a term that is missing or defined wrongly? Tell us.