- I've been hearing this sound everywhere.

(electronic hi-hat) That blazing fast hi-hat burst.

Have you heard it?

It's all over.

So what is it and how did it end up everywhere.

(electronic feedback and hi-hat) - So these crazy fast hi-hat triplets, they are the hallmark of the trap sound, a sound that's been steadily working its way from the Atlanta streets into the mainstream for nearly two decades.

Nahre and I are gonna try to make a beat inspired by the trap sound, but first, where did it come from?

Today, T.I.

and Gucci Mane are both claiming to be fathers of the genre, and no disrespect to the two major innovators of trap music, but trap's roots actually go back further to the mid 90s.

That's when the term trap really started showing up in hip hop lyrics.

The word was popularized in Atlanta as slang for a place where drug deals go down.

- It's about a lifestyle where you are dealing drugs and it's a trap, right, that you can't really get out of or you can go to jail or something like that.

- References to the trap as a place started appearing in music by many Atlanta rappers, for instance, the 1995 song "Thought Process" by Goodie Mob.

- Rap music is the CNN of the black community, right, and trap music is one that is unique in that it is speaking to some of the cultural and economic disparities that exist in our society today and so a lot of the youth can relate.

- That brings us to the origin of the trap sound, and those roots extend even further back into the 80s with the invention of an instrument that had a massive impact on hip hop, dance music, and pop music, the Roland TR-808.

When the 808 was released in 1980 it instantly stood out but not in a good way.

Instead of using prerecorded samples of actual drum sounds, the 808 tried to mimic real drum with synthesized, electronically-produced beats.

Imagine a robot describing what a drum sounds like.

- (robot voice) Oh that sweet sweet juicy boom.

- Most of the producers in the early 1980s did not like the strange, synthy sounds.

That's when a stock pile of 808s invaded neighborhood thrift stores, and soon, young creators found a cheap way to experiment with new sounds.

Eventually the 808 became standard gear for any hopeful hip hop producer.

In the 2015 documentary on the 808, Questlove even called it the rock guitar of hip hop.

Here it is, the Roland TR-808.

- The boom that you hear when you're in a car and you hear that bass be like boom, that's typically the 808 boom and the 808 authentic source is from this actual machine, which is analog technology.

The sounds in here, every trap producer today constantly uses.

This is how you dial up every single individual sound that you're gonna use.

- I wanna go back to the cowbell.

- Yeah, go back to your cowbell, CB, tap it in.

(synthesizer sounds) What makes this special is the iconic, legendary status of the instrument itself.

Now the technology has advanced to the point where an 808 is irrelevant, because you can use any software program and get absolute amazing dynamics.

- Yeah, just on steroids.

- Completely not needed at all.

(LA laughs) - This is the essential seasoning, but you're not using it in just any ole kitchen.

- Absolutely.

- I dig it.

The 808 was crucial to creating crunk in Memphis and bounce in New Orleans, forerunners to the trap sound.

You can hear the electronic hi-hats on Juvenile's 1998 album, 400 Degreez.

Atlanta in the early 2000 is when trap really comes together.

Soon the trap trinity emerged: T.I., Young Jeezy, and Gucci Mane.

But behind every big name, there's usually a producer playing a key role in shaping their sound.

- We made all the stuff they was rapping on.

(laughs) So without them, without Toomp, without Shawty Redd, you wouldn't know who T.I.

is or Gucci.

- But a lot of people don't recognize the names of the originators of the trap sound, like DJ Toomp and Shawty Redd.

It wasn't until the next generation of trap music that the producers started to get recognition.

It was 2008 and 17 year old beat maker Lex Luger was uploading his beats to MySpace where they caught the attention of Waka Flocka Flame.

Luger ended up producing Waka's hit single "Hard in Da Paint".

Before long, Lex Luger and other Atlanta based producers, like Metro Boomin', were producing hits for major artists from all over, like Snoop Dogg, Drake, Kanye West.

So not a whole lot of people are familiar with Shawty Redd or DJ Toomp, but Metro Boomin', that's a household name.

How do you think producers of trap gained as much fame as the rappers that were rapping on their beats, how did that happen?

- The tags.

(laughs) The tags and the rappers starting to shoutout and actually put producer on.

- You might recognize Metro Boomin' producer tag in songs like "Father Stretch My Hands Pt.

1" by Kanye.

- Back when Redd and them were doing it, they weren't doing tags so you didn't know who was making the beats.

We'd start shouting them out, "Mike WiLL Made-It", Gucci Mane slayed it.

(LA Laughs) Once the rappers started shouting the producers out, producers became big.

- Soon, everyone wanted a piece of Atlanta's trap producers.

Pop stars like Beyonce, Rihanna, even Miley Cyrus all came knocking and the Atlanta sound spread around the world.

International producers started using it in everything from reggaeton to K-pop.

In 2017, rap and R&B surpassed rock as the biggest genre in the US, based on album sales and streams.

And trap is arguably rap's most popular subgenre.

That means millions of Americans of every shade, right now, are listening to music that invokes the cultural legacy and ongoing struggles of segregation, structural racism, and urban violence.

- Think about somebody like T.I., right, he talks about the consequences of what it means to be a trapper, and he uses the music to kind of work through that.

This is really interesting to me how everything is all trap everything, and I joke with my students, it's like you have trap yoga, trap in paint, trap karaoke, trap water.

And I am a trap purist, I really need to get a shirt.

It basically means sitting on the porch, so to speak, and shaking my fist like this isn't trap.

(laughs) But I'm slowly but surely coming to grips with the fact that trap music is now trap aesthetics.

It does have that kind of distinct print that can be used to update or remix other genres that are already in place.

But I also wish that folks would also give receipts and credit where credit is due.

This didn't just come out of nowhere, trap didn't just come out of nowhere.

- So now that we know where trap music comes from, let's break down how we come up with trap sounds.

Trap music has a wide range of tempos.

It ranges from 110 BPM to about 140.

I chose 126 BPM, because it just felt good.

When I think of trap music, this is about the tempo that I go to.

I started with the 808.

That heavy bass note, that's what we mean by 808 nowadays.

Next I added in that hallmark sound, the hi-hats, and they go at these alarmingly fast rates of 32nd note triplets or 16th note triplets.

(electronic hi-hat) Trying to play that on a live gig would be a nightmare.

That's part of the reason why trap is so intoxicating, that's why it's so appealing, because it's almost like you're hearing the impossible being captured, you know what I'm saying.

Next I added in the snare.

(electronic snare) The snare just sits right in the middle of the mix.

This right here is pretty much the basic, bare bones of trap sound, anything else is extra.

(electronic beat) So Nahre created the sound bank of a bunch of sounds that she made, maybe like a call and response kind of thing.

Here it is, it's like (imitates notes).

I got all these waves working in like a respond, open space kind of thing, it sounds like this.

(electronic music) This is everything put together.

(trap music) Nahre And I, we collabed on this trap beat.

- Alright.

- Alright, it should pop up right there.

- Ah, found it, ha ha.

- Make it loud, turn it up loud if you can.

(trap music) For some advice, what would you suggest we could do to make the beat more trappy, what could we do to improve it?

- I think that sounds trap enough to me, I like it.

I like the bounce on it, for real though.

- Well Marz, man, I really appreciate you coming though.

- Definitely, and keep in touch, we can collab or something, man.