Born in the early '90s, the boom-bap sound remains vital today, with hard-knocking drums, gritty soul loops, and dense wordplay. The term "boom bap" is an onomatopoeia for the drum sounds prominent in the genre-defining songs. It is usually recognized by an acoustic drum loop/break that is then chopped up and played using a sampler such as the Akai MPC or the SP1200. The term was popularized by the album Return of the Boom Bap by KRS-One. Today, artists like Joey Bada$$, Pro Era, Action Bronson, and Freddie Gibbs, among others are keeping boom bap stylings alive and in the charts.
An article on recordingarts.com says, "Boom bap was in many ways a callback to the earliest days of hip hop, when tracks were sparser due to limited production resources. The boom bap sound could let artists feel connected with hip hop’s roots amidst a musical landscape increasingly saturated with highly-polished productions. Practically, producers with little money and limited access to big studios could use devices like the SP-1200, MPC60, and the Akai-S900 to produce heavy (if somewhat basic) beats."
In that way, boom bap and the musical culture of West Africa have a lot in common. It's a culture of making the most of what you have and using the sonics you can create as a way to communicate and connect. To celebrate and to gather.
