mumble rap

English

Etymology

From mumble + rap. First coined by hip hop artist Wiz Khalifa in 2016 during an interview.

Noun

mumble rap (uncountable)

1. (music) A microgenre of hip hop with mumbling or unclear vocal delivery by artists, and may generally refer to rappers who do not share the genre's typical emphasis on lyricism.

   Hypernyms: hip hop, rap

   Coordinate terms: emo rap, cloud rap, SoundCloud rap, trap music

   • 2018, Nick J. Sciullo, Communicating Hip-Hop: How Hip-Hop Culture Shapes Popular Culture, page 40:

     Derided by some, artists such as Future and Migos have been wildly successful mumble rap artists.

   • 2019, Hanif Abdurraqib, Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest, page 201:

     "Mumble rap" is the most active and vigorous scapegoat rap has had in years, in part because the internet — particularly social media — has created a landscape for it to thrive and be a hotly debated topic, engaging in the ideas of language and whether or not rappers should have to adhere to them, or whether or not this so-called mumble rap is actually pushing the genre forward, past some of its bowing to establishments.

   • 2020, Macklin Smith, Aurko Joshi, Rhymes in the Flow: How Rappers Flip the Beat, page 256:

     The logical culmination of this tendency is today's mumble rap, featuring rhythmically monotonous phrasal and verbal repetition, strongly auto-tuned and, in some cases, literally mumbled.

   • 2020, Adrian Besley, Billie Eilish: From e-girl to Icon‎^[2], Michael O'Mara Books, →ISBN:

     There was an exciting proliferation of punk rap, mumble rap, emo rap and trap-influenced SoundCloud artists.

Italian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English mumble rap.

Noun

mumble rap m (invariable)

1. (neologism) mumble rap