EDM trap music

History#

Around 2012, a new style of electronic dance music (EDM) emerged which incorporated elements of trap music, This genre saw the use of techno, dub, and electro sounds combined with the Roland TR-808 drum samples and vocal samples typical of hip hop trap. The music was initially dubbed simply as “trap” by producers and fans, which led to the term “trap” being used to address the music of both rappers and electronic producers, to much confusion among followers of both. The term “trap” continued to be used to describe two separate genres of hip hop and dance music. The new wave of the genre has been labeled by some as “EDM trap” to distinguish it from the hip hop genre. The terms “trap-techno” and “trapstep” are often labeled by producers to describe the musical structure of an individual track. The evolving EDM trap has seen incorporation and stylistic influences from dubstep, in which trap has been hailed as the superseding phase of dubstep during the mid-2010s. The new phase typically plays at 140 BPM with strong bass drops, which began growing in popularity from 2013. In 2013, a fan-made video by Filthy Frank (also known as Joji), of EDM trap producer Baauer’s track “Harlem Shake”, became an internet meme, propelling the track to become the first EDM trap song to hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100. This challenge the track was used for consisted of one person dancing to the rhythm of the song until the beat dropped, in which then whoever else within the video would dance along with the person dancing in the beginning. Five EDM trap producers performed at the 2013 Ultra Music Festival in the United States, including DJ Craze, Baauer and Flosstradamus. it reached number two in the iTunes dance chart with Vibe stating it was “the world’s biggest-selling EDM trap album ever.” EDM trap music has also found fame internationally, especially in South Korea. South Korean boy band BigBang was one of the earliest groups to bring EDM trap into the K-pop sphere with commercial hit singles such as “Good Boy” (2014) by its members GD X Taeyang and “Bang Bang Bang” (2015). In 2018, South Korean girl group Blackpink released the commercially and critically successful single “Ddu-Du Ddu-Du”, which propelled the EDM trap sound to “global heights”. Rolling Stone recognized “Ddu-Du Ddu-Du” for having perfected and popularized K-pop’s EDM trap template, and named it the sixth best Korean song of all time. EDM trap began to fuse with synth-pop and emo pop in the late 2010s when Philadelphia producer group Working on Dying began to produce Eternal Atake, the third studio album by Francisville rapper Lil Uzi Vert. Brandon Finessin of Working on Dying earned eight producer credits on Lil Uzi Vert’s emo rap album, adding hyperpop and EDM elements to traditional trap drum sequences. This led to Lil Uzi Vert and Brandon Finessin leading the Billboard charts collaboratively on the Producers and Songwriters Top 100s. This caused an offshoot scene of hyperpop trap beats to emerge from minor YouTube producers based on Working on Dying’s electronic approach to trap music. A new subgenre of EDM trap music referred to as trapwave (or hardwave) emerged also in late 2010s that fuses trap music with synthwave.