Press Play for a hip-hop drum beat at 100 BPM. It starts with Old-School Drum Machine, and you can switch to Boom Bap, Golden-Era Boom Bap, Hardcore Boom Bap, Dilla-Style Drunk Swing, Jazz-Rap Ride Pocket, Lo-Fi Hip-Hop and West Coast G-Funk. One beat lasts 600 ms.
Playing over a hip-hop drum beat at 100 BPM
100 BPM is at the fast end for hip-hop. Stay relaxed: if your hands tense up or you start rushing, drop back ten BPM, play the part cleanly for a few minutes, then come back up.
What plays at 100 BPM
Old-School Drum Machine is written at 98 BPM, so 100 BPM is its home tempo. In 4/4 at this tempo a quarter note lasts 600 ms, an eighth note 300 ms and a sixteenth 150 ms, which is the spacing of the hi-hat you hear. Switch to Boom Bap, Golden-Era Boom Bap, Hardcore Boom Bap, Dilla-Style Drunk Swing, Jazz-Rap Ride Pocket, Lo-Fi Hip-Hop and West Coast G-Funk on the page and the tempo stays at 100 BPM.
How long is a phrase at 100 BPM?
Knowing how long a phrase lasts helps you plan a song, a solo or a recording take. The drums play a fill at the end of every four or eight bars, so these are the lengths you will hear.
Phrase lengths at 100 BPM
Length
Time
One bar of 4/4
2.4 seconds
Four-bar phrase
9.6 seconds
Eight-bar section
19 seconds
Three-minute song
about 75 bars
How a hip-hop drum beat works
Boom bap is a heavy kick ("boom") and a hard snare ("bap") with a slightly swung hi-hat. It is slower than it sounds: most of the energy comes from where the kick lands around the snare, not from the tempo.
How to play along
Rappers: count four bars per line and aim your stressed syllables at the snare. Keys and guitar players: loop a two- or four-chord phrase and leave space for the vocal. Try adding a little swing to your own sixteenths to match the hi-hat.