Disclaimer: This post is completely my opinion and I may be off on my understanding of the following topics.
I grew up listening to all types of music and all types of rap. I remember when I first bumped UGK Dirty Money for like 6 months straight. I remember when I thought I was so up on music no one in my city heard about when I always had the latest DJ Jelly and Big Oomp tape rockin. And thinking about the evolution of southern rap, I wonder how the word "Trap" became a name for a sub-genre of music on a mainstream level.
First off, let's talk about what a trap is. A trap is a dope house or a place a drug dealer uses to run their business. Nothing more. I don't know how long it's been around but always assumed it came from Atlanta slang. I remember Outkast on Aquemini's SpottieOttieDopaliscious (1998) saying:
"United Parcel Service & the people at the Post Office
didn't call you back because you had cloudy piss
So now you back in the trap just that, trapped
Go on and marinate on that for a minute."
Let's talk about the actual style of music it denotes: somewhere between 130-170bpm, 808's a common theme, synthesizers and digital instruments opposed to sampling a common theme, common to hear hi-hat triplet fills and such...pretty much a continuation of what was "Crunk" in the 2000's. That's my interpretation at least. It's a style who's lineage came from southern rap styles that became mainstream in an era where music is less regionalized.
For whatever reason, America has always had a thirst for action movies. What's action without sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll at least somewhere incorporated? The same applies to music and I have a feeling record companies saw that records with such themes generated appeal. That's why you hear "trap" this and "kilo" that. It's Pablo Escobar on wax! It's Scarface (the movie) in music arrangements. These rappers who embraced that, happened to use those southern-influenced beats as their framework. Next thing you know, the next generation of producers piggy-back off that sound and everyone starts calling the style "Trap".
It has nothing to do with an actual crack house so the parallelism could not be more inaccurate. If you walk into a real trap, you might just find some classic soul, 80's pop, old Cash Money playing if there was music playing. I'm not judging those involved in a life of drugs, I'm just saying- to tie a new generation of rap music directly to crack houses is ignorant.
I really wish when we sat down and chose a name for this sub-genre, we could of went a different direction. And for the record, I like action movies. I still play "The Dopeboys in the Trap", and I will conform, to not confuse people while discussing music. I just hate to say to people when they ask what kind of music I make, "I don't like to be put in a box but it's a unique style of what you might call Trap."
