Trip hop

Trip hop is a musical genre that originated in the late 1980s in the United Kingdom, especially Bristol.^[3] It has been described as a psychedelic fusion of hip hop and electronica with slow tempos and an atmospheric sound,^[4][5][6] often incorporating elements of jazz, soul, funk, reggae, dub, R&B, and other forms of electronic music, as well as sampling from movie soundtracks and other eclectic sources.^[7]

The style emerged as a more experimental variant of breakbeat from the Bristol sound scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s,^[8] incorporating influences from jazz, soul, funk, dub, and rap music.^[9] It was pioneered by acts like Massive Attack, Tricky, and Portishead.^[10] The term was first coined in a 1994 Mixmag piece about American producer DJ Shadow.^[11] Trip hop achieved commercial success in the 1990s, and has been described as "Europe's alternative choice in the second half of the '90s".^[8]

Characteristics

Common musical aesthetics include a bass-heavy drumbeat,^[12] often providing the slowed down breakbeat samples similar to standard 1990s hip hop beats, giving the genre a more psychedelic and mainstream feel.^[12] Vocals in trip hop are often female and feature characteristics of various singing styles including R&B, jazz and rock. The female-dominant vocals of trip hop may be partially attributable to the influence of genres such as jazz and early R&B, in which female vocalists were more common. However, there are notable exceptions: Massive Attack^[13] and Groove Armada collaborated with male and female vocalists, Tricky often features vocally in his own productions along with Martina Topley-Bird,^[14] and Chris Corner provided vocals for later albums with Sneaker Pimps.^[15]

Trip hop is also known for its melancholic sound. This may be partly due to the fact that several acts were inspired by post-punk bands;^[16] Tricky and Massive Attack both covered and sampled songs of Siouxsie and the Banshees^[17][18] and the Cure.^[19][20] Tricky opened his second album Nearly God with a version of "Tattoo", a proto-trip-hop song of Siouxsie and the Banshees initially recorded in 1983.^[21]

Trip hop tracks often incorporate Rhodes pianos, saxophones, trumpets, flutes, and may employ unconventional instruments such as the theremin and Mellotron. Trip hop differs from hip hop in theme and overall tone. Contrasting with gangsta rap and its hard-hitting lyrics, trip hop offers a more aural atmospherics influenced by experimental folk and rock acts of the seventies, such as John Martyn,^[22] combined with instrumental hip hop, turntable scratching, and breakbeat rhythms. Regarded in some ways as a 1990s update of fusion, trip hop may be said to "transcend" the hardcore rap styles and lyrics with atmospheric overtones to create a more mellow tempo.^[23]

History

Late 1980s–1991: Origins

The term "trip-hop" first appeared in print in June 1994.^[24] Andy Pemberton, a music journalist writing for Mixmag, used it to describe "In/Flux", a single by American producer DJ Shadow and UK act RPM, with the latter signed to Mo' Wax Records.^[25][26]

In Bristol, hip hop began to seep into the consciousness of a subculture already well-schooled in Jamaican forms of music. DJs, MCs, b-boys and graffiti artists grouped together into informal soundsystems.^[27] Like the pioneering Bronx crews of DJs Kool Herc, Afrika Bambataa and Grandmaster Flash, the soundsystems provided party music for public spaces, often in the economically deprived council estates from which some of their members originated. Bristol's soundsystem DJs, drawing heavily on Jamaican dub music, typically used a laid-back, slow and heavy drum beat ("down tempo").

Bristol's Wild Bunch crew became one of the soundsystems to put a local spin on the international phenomenon, helping to birth Bristol's signature sound of trip hop, often termed "the Bristol Sound".^[27] The Wild Bunch and its associates included at various times in its existence the MC Adrian "Tricky Kid" Thaws, the graffiti artist and lyricist Robert "3D" Del Naja, producer Jonny Dollar and the DJs Nellee Hooper, Andrew "Mushroom" Vowles and Grant "Daddy G" Marshall. As the hip hop scene matured in Bristol and musical trends evolved further toward acid jazz and house in the late 1980s,^[28] the golden era of the soundsystem began to end. The Wild Bunch signed a record deal and evolved into Massive Attack,^[29] a core collective of 3D, Mushroom and Daddy G, with significant contributions from Tricky Kid (soon shortened to Tricky), Dollar, and Hooper on production duties, along with a rotating cast of other vocalists.^[29]

Another influence came from Gary Clail's Tackhead soundsystem. Clail often worked with former The Pop Group singer Mark Stewart.^[30] The latter experimented with his band Mark Stewart & the Maffia, which consisted of New York session musicians Skip McDonald, Doug Wimbish, and Keith LeBlanc, who had been a part of the house band for the Sugarhill Records record label.^[31] Produced by Adrian Sherwood, the music combined hip hop with experimental rock and dub and sounded like a premature version of what later became trip hop. In 1993, Kirsty MacColl released "Angel", one of the first examples of the genre crossing over to pop, a hybrid that dominated the charts toward the end of the 1990s.

1991–1997: Mainstream breakthrough

"Teardrop"

Sample of "Teardrop" by Massive Attack, from Mezzanine