Trap Metal
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A late-2010s SoundCloud-born fusion that welds trap's production grammar — booming distorted 808 bass, rapid hi-hat triplet rolls, sparse half-time beats and pitched-down vocal samples — to metal and hardcore's distorted screaming, blast-adjacent aggression and detuned guitar stabs. Tempos feel slow and heavy in half-time (often 60-80 BPM felt) but bristle with skittering hat subdivisions; vocals lurch from rapped/mumbled verses into full-throated metalcore-style screams and shrieks. The mood is bleak, nihilistic and abrasive, with clipping, blown-out 'red-lined' mixing, ad-lib-heavy delivery and frequent horror, occult and self-destruction imagery defining the aesthetic.
History
Trap metal emerged around 2015-2017 from the SoundCloud rap underground, where artists fused Atlanta trap production with metal, hardcore and industrial textures. Florida's GHOSTEMANE, the UK's Scarlxrd (a former metalcore vocalist who shifted to screamed trap), and NYC duo City Morgue (ZillaKami and SosMula) became the defining figures, alongside the more punk-leaning $uicideboy$ and the abrasive 'rage'-adjacent fringe. Denzel Curry's heavier cuts and the broader Raider Klan/Spaceghostpurrp lineage fed its Florida roots. Spreading virally via SoundCloud and YouTube rather than traditional labels, it peaked commercially 2017-2020; Scarlxrd's screamed hooks and GHOSTEMANE's metal-literate songwriting bridged it back to mosh culture, and its 808-plus-scream template heavily shaped later 'rage' and digital-hardcore hybrids.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- Wikipedia: Trap metal
- Scarlxrd
- Ghostemane
- City Morgue
- Pitchfork / Fader features on SoundCloud rap and trap metal's emergence
- RateYourMusic genre tags: Trap Metal (Scarlxrd 'Heart Attack', Ghostemane 'Mercury: Retrograde')