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Heavy Metal Thunder Rap Metal

Genres Heavy Metal Alternative Metal Rap Metal

Rap Metal

Rapped verses over metal riffs, usually political and usually furious — the confrontational cousin of the nu-metal that followed it.

Active years
1991 – present
Origin
USA
Family
Alt / Groove / Nu-Metal
Bands here
13

Before you press play

Explicit content

Graphic lyrics and artwork are a defining feature of this genre rather than an occasional accident — which of violence, gore or sex depends on the band. Worth knowing before you put it on in a room with other people in it.

Start here

Four records in order of how easy they are to get into — which is not the same as best first.

  1. Rage Against the Machine Rage Against the Machine, 1992 The landmark

    Still the best record anyone made in this style, and the least dated. Tom Morello uses a guitar as a turntable, Zack de la Rocha argues rather than boasts, and there is not a keyboard or a sample on it — everything is played.

    Listen to Rage Against the Machine

  2. Body Count Body Count, 1992

    Ice-T's metal band, and the record that got the genre discussed in Congress over "Cop Killer" — a song about a police killing that was widely reported as an instruction. Furious and much funnier than its reputation.

    Listen to Body Count

  3. Deaf Dumb Blind Clawfinger, 1993

    Swedish, and the European take: industrial-leaning, more melodic, and explicitly anti-racist at a time when that needed saying in Scandinavia.

    Listen to Deaf Dumb Blind

  4. Pigwalk Stuck Mojo, 1996

    The heaviest of them. Rich Ward writes proper metal riffs and Bonz raps over the top rather than through the gaps, which is the harder way to do it.

    Listen to Pigwalk

What it sounds like

Rapped verses over a metal riff, and the two halves treated as equals. The guitars are downtuned and syncopated to leave room for the vocal rhythm, the drums borrow from hip-hop as much as from rock, and the bass is prominent and often funky. Scratching and samples appear. Delivery is confrontational and the lyrics are usually political — police, class, race, war. Compared with nu-metal, which took the same delivery and turned it inward towards personal pain, this looks outward and points at something. That difference is the whole distinction between the two genres, and it is why one aged into respectability and the other took twenty years to be forgiven.

  • Heaviness 3 out of 5
  • Speed 3 out of 5
  • Aggression 4 out of 5
  • Technicality 3 out of 5
  • Darkness 2 out of 5
  • Melody 3 out of 5

Where the name came from

Descriptive, and older than the genre proper: Anthrax and Public Enemy's Bring the Noise (1991) made the pairing explicit, Rage Against the Machine's debut (1992) made it a band rather than a collaboration, and the Judgment Night soundtrack (1993) turned it into an industry.

The bands

Hear these first

  • Rage Against the Machine USA
  • Body Count USA
  • Clawfinger Sweden
  • Biohazard USA
  • Stuck Mojo USA

And 8 more

  • Hed PE USA
  • Downset USA
  • Dog Eat Dog USA
  • Senser UK
  • Anthrax USA
  • Skindred UK
  • Hacktivist UK
  • Crazy Town USA

If you liked this

Closest in sound outside this family, leaning towards the similar or the gentler rather than straight into the deep end.