Press Play for a hip-hop drum beat at 70 BPM. It starts with Lo-Fi Hip-Hop, and you can switch to Boom Bap, Golden-Era Boom Bap, Hardcore Boom Bap, Dilla-Style Drunk Swing, Jazz-Rap Ride Pocket, West Coast G-Funk and Old-School Drum Machine. One beat lasts 857 ms.
Playing over a hip-hop drum beat at 70 BPM
70 BPM is at the slow end for hip-hop. Slow tempos show every timing slip, so it is the best place to learn a new part: play it until it feels boring, then move up.
What plays at 70 BPM
Lo-Fi Hip-Hop is written at 76 BPM, the closest of this style's grooves to 70 BPM, so it opens first and plays a little slower than written. In 4/4 at this tempo a quarter note lasts 857 ms, an eighth note 429 ms and a sixteenth 214 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, West Coast G-Funk and Old-School Drum Machine on the page and the tempo stays at 70 BPM.
How long is a phrase at 70 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 70 BPM
Length
Time
One bar of 4/4
3.4 seconds
Four-bar phrase
14 seconds
Eight-bar section
27 seconds
Three-minute song
about 53 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.