A hip-hop beat is a drum pattern with a kick on the first beat, a snare on the backbeats, a loop or sample with some character, and a bassline that sits under all of it, usually at 80 to 100 BPM. Start with the loop, program a simple kick and snare on a 16-step grid, loosen the timing, then arrange it so a rapper has room: an intro, 16-bar verses and a hook.
This guide walks through that order. It covers the broad modern hip-hop beat rather than one sub-style, so where boom bap, trap, lo-fi and drill part ways, it points you to the guide for each instead of repeating it. The tempo figures match the BPM by genre cheat sheet.
Hip-hop tempo and feel
Hip-hop is usually made between 80 and 100 BPM. That is a wide window, and where you sit inside it changes the feel more than any sound choice. Toward 80 the groove is lazy and heavy. Toward 100 it has a head-nodding bounce that works for more upbeat records.
Count in sixteenth notes and the bar has 16 steps, four to each beat. Because the tempo is slow, each step is long, and small timing differences are easy to hear. That is why hip-hop rewards a simple pattern played with good feel, not a busy one played stiffly.
If your sketch drifts toward 130 or above, you are probably making trap, and that guide's patterns fit better.
Start from a loop or a sample
Most beats begin with a melodic idea that is one to four bars long: a chopped soul phrase, a few piano chords, a guitar line, a dusty keys loop. You can play it, sample it, or start from a loop another producer made. The difference between a loop and a sample matters for clearance later, and the guide on whether loops are cheating covers the usual objection.
What makes a loop a good base for hip-hop:
- Space. A loop that fills every frequency and every beat leaves nothing for drums or a voice. Look for one with gaps.
- A clear key. You will write a bass under it, and a doubtful key makes that harder. Tag it first, and use the compatible keys guide if you plan to layer a second melodic part.
- Repeatability. It should still be interesting on the fifteenth pass, because a verse is 16 bars of it.
- A tempo you can use. Set the project tempo from the loop, not the other way around. Stretching a sample by a large amount usually costs you the tone.
The core drum pattern, step by step
This is the plain hip-hop backbone. Number the bar 1 to 16, four steps per beat.
- Kick: steps 1 and 11. Step 1 is the downbeat. Step 11 is the "and" of beat three, which gives the bar its push.
- Snare: steps 5 and 13. Those are beats two and four, the backbeat. Layer a clap with it if you want a wider front edge.
- Closed hat: every odd step, so 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15. That is straight eighth notes.
If the kick on step 11 feels wrong against your loop, that is the first thing to move.
Two variations
Once the backbone is working, change one thing at a time.
- The bounce variation. Keep the snare on steps 5 and 13. Move the kicks to steps 1, 4, 11 and 15 (step 4 is the last sixteenth of beat one, step 15 the "and" of beat four). The extra kicks make the bar roll forward. Keep the hats on eighths so the kick carries the movement.
- The half-time variation. Put a single snare on step 9 only. Kick on steps 1 and 8, plus a pickup on 15. Switch the hats to sixteenths (every step) and thin them with velocity so they read as a shimmer. The bar now feels twice as slow, which is the move that leads toward a trap-style groove without leaving the same tempo.
Change the last bar of every four or eight with a dropped kick, a short snare roll or a hat run, so the loop does not sit still.
Swing and humanising
A grid is exact and a drummer is not. Hip-hop took much of its feel from sampled drum machines and records played by people, and the slight lopsidedness is part of the sound.
- Swing the hats, not the snare. Swing delays the in-between notes. With the hats on eighths, as in the backbone above, that means the "ands": steps 3, 7, 11 and 15. With hats on sixteenths it means the even-numbered steps. Leave the snare close to the grid so the backbeat stays solid. Many DAWs have a swing control on the groove or quantise tool, set to eighths or sixteenths to match. Start low and raise it until the pattern starts to lilt.
- Vary velocity. A hat line at one volume sounds like a machine. Alternate hard and soft hits, and accent the hats on the beat.
- Nudge the snare late. Moving the snare a hair behind the grid makes a beat feel heavier and slower, and moving it ahead makes it feel urgent. Try a few milliseconds either way and listen against the loop.
The boom bap guide goes deeper on swing and sampled-drum feel, and is the place to look if you want the dusty, swung version.
Bass and 808 choices
The bass has two jobs: it fills the low end and it supports the groove. In hip-hop you have three common options.
- A sampled or played bass. An upright, electric or synth bass that follows the root of the loop. It sounds warm and fits sample-based beats.
- A sub or sine under the loop. A clean low note that doubles the root and adds weight without a distinct character.
- An 808. A long, tuned kick-style bass with a decay you control. It carries on small speakers when it is saturated slightly, and it gives the beat the modern low end. For the full 808 treatment, see the trap guide.
Two practical points. Keep the bass out of the kick's way: either shorten the notes so they end before the next kick, or duck the bass a few milliseconds when the kick hits. And tune the 808 to the key of the loop, because an out-of-tune low note makes everything above it sound wrong.
Chopping and layering
Chopping is how a long sample becomes a hook that is yours.
- Find the slice points. Cut on transients, at the start of a chord or a note, and slice a bar into four or eight pieces.
- Rearrange them. Play the pieces in a different order, repeat one, drop one, or pitch one up. The change is what turns it from the original into a new phrase.
- Filter the sample. Cut the low end so the bass has room, and roll off the top slightly to sit behind the drums.
- Layer sparingly. One extra sound, a quiet vinyl crackle, a soft pad or a short vocal chop, is usually enough. Each layer should have its own place in the frequency range.
If you are chopping a record, clearance is a separate question, and it applies whether or not you change the sound. Use a loop you have the right to use, or read up before you release anything.
Arrangement for a rapper
A hip-hop beat has to work as a song structure, not as a loop that runs forever.
- Intro, 4 to 8 bars: the loop on its own, perhaps filtered, with a drum fill leading in.
- Verse, 16 bars: the full drums and bass, with the melody pulled back so a voice sits on top.
- Hook, 8 bars or so: everything opens up, a second melodic layer enters, and the drums change slightly, such as open hats or a heavier kick.
- Second verse and hook: the same material, with small changes so it does not feel copied.
- Bridge or breakdown: drums out, just the loop and bass, then the energy returns for the last hook.
- Outro, 4 to 8 bars: strip down to the loop.
Most rappers write in 16-bar verses, and a beat that has the structure marked saves them a lot of time.
Leaving space for vocals
A beat that is complete on its own is harder to rap over. Make deliberate room.
- Keep the midrange clear. The vocal lives roughly between 1 and 4 kHz, so carve a small dip there in the melody and avoid stacking bright sounds in that range.
- Thin the loop in the verse. Pull one melodic layer out and bring it back in the hook.
- Leave rhythmic gaps. A rapper needs spaces in the pattern, so do not put a busy hat line and a fast melody in the same bars.
The guide on finding vocalists and rappers covers how to get the beat to someone who will write on it.
Making hip-hop beats with another producer
Hip-hop beats often start as a loop from one producer and are finished by another, with drums, bass or an arrangement. On ColabLoop, you can listen to loops free with no account, and the public preview is an MP3 of up to the first 20 seconds. You can filter by tempo and key on the loops page and by "Looking for", which is how a producer says they want drums, vocals or any collaboration.
Requesting to build on a loop is always free, and every producer is reviewed by a person before they can publish a loop or request a collaboration. If the owner accepts, the two of you get a private room with live chat and the full-quality WAV. The beat is made in your own DAW. When it goes out, the collaborator records how it was released, and both producers attest that the loop's owner is on the split. Nothing is sold between producers. The hip-hop genre page is a good place to start.
Questions producers ask
What BPM is hip-hop?
Most hip-hop sits between 80 and 100 BPM. Boom bap tends to run 84 to 98 and lo-fi 70 to 90, so if you want one of those feels, check its own range.
How do I program a basic hip-hop drum pattern?
On a 16-step bar, put the kick on steps 1 and 11, the snare on steps 5 and 13, and closed hats on every odd step. Then add swing to the hats and vary the velocity.
What is the difference between hip-hop, boom bap and trap?
Boom bap is the swung, sample-based style of the 1990s, trap is faster hats and heavy 808s at a tempo of 130 to 160, and hip-hop is the wider category that contains both. Lo-fi and drill are further sub-styles with their own tempos.
How many bars should a hip-hop beat be?
Verses are usually 16 bars and hooks are usually 8, so a full beat built around those blocks gives a rapper a track they can write to.