Hip-hop drum beat at 90 BPM
Press Play for a hip-hop drum beat at 90 BPM. It starts with Jazz-Rap Ride Pocket, and you can switch to Boom Bap, Golden-Era Boom Bap, Hardcore Boom Bap, Dilla-Style Drunk Swing, Lo-Fi Hip-Hop, West Coast G-Funk and Old-School Drum Machine. One beat lasts 667 ms.
Playing over a hip-hop drum beat at 90 BPM
90 BPM is a comfortable middle tempo for hip-hop. Use it to play whole songs or long improvisations without stopping; the fills every few bars tell you where each phrase ends.
What plays at 90 BPM
Jazz-Rap Ride Pocket is written at 90 BPM, so 90 BPM is its home tempo. In 4/4 at this tempo a quarter note lasts 667 ms, an eighth note 333 ms and a sixteenth 167 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, Lo-Fi Hip-Hop, West Coast G-Funk and Old-School Drum Machine on the page and the tempo stays at 90 BPM.
How long is a phrase at 90 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.
| Length | Time |
|---|---|
| One bar of 4/4 | 2.7 seconds |
| Four-bar phrase | 11 seconds |
| Eight-bar section | 21 seconds |
| Three-minute song | about 68 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.