New Orleans Bounce

What it is

New Orleans built a whole regional genre out of two loops. The Showboys' Drag Rap, universally called Triggerman, and the Cameron Brothers' Brown Beat have been the backing track for bounce records continuously since 1991, and a track that does not use one of them is the exception. Over the top go call and response chants, second line rhythms inherited from the city's brass bands, and a vocal delivery that is closer to a caller working a crowd than to rapping in verses. It produced its own star system, and through Big Freedia it produced sissy bounce, which is where most people outside Louisiana first met it.

What it sounds like

Relentless and percussive. The snare is the busiest thing in the track, hitting the backbeat and then stuttering across the last two sixteenths of the bar in fast repeated bursts. Under that, a syncopated kick that follows a 3-3-2 shape rather than the downbeats, and a high conga or timbale answering on the offbeats. The harmonic content is minimal: often just the Triggerman bassline and a whistle or horn stab. Everything is bright, dry and mixed for a marching crowd, and it does not change for four minutes.

Key elements

• The Triggerman loopDrag Rap by the Showboys, 1986, sampled on effectively every bounce record ever made. The Dragnet horn figure and the bassline are as recognisable to the city as a national anthem.
• The snare stutterFast repeated snare hits crossing the end of the bar, three or four in a row at descending velocities. This is the element a listener uses to identify the genre in one bar.
• Second line percussionA high conga, timbale or cowbell answering the snare on the offbeat sixteenths, carried straight over from the city's brass band parade rhythms.
• Call and responseThe vocal is a caller giving instructions and a crowd answering. It changes the drum programming, because the pattern has to leave room for the answer.
• A syncopated kickKick on 1, the a of 1 and the and of 2, a 3-3-2 shape rather than a downbeat anchor. It pushes the bar forward instead of grounding it.

How to get them

• SnareOne bright snare, high-passed at 250Hz, very short. Program the backbeat at 110, then the stutter as three hits at 82, 76 and 70 across the last sixteenths so the burst reads as a roll rather than four separate hits.
• KickPunchy and mid-forward, fundamental near 65Hz, decay under 250 milliseconds. It has to be short or the syncopation turns into mud once the tempo is this quick.
• PercussionHigh conga or timbale on the offbeat sixteenths, tuned up a couple of semitones and panned about 30 percent to one side. Keep it dry and let it answer the snare rather than double it.
• The loopIf you are not clearing Drag Rap, rebuild it: a low sine bassline on the same 3-3-2 shape, a horn stab sampled from elsewhere, and the same relentless repetition. The repetition matters more than the source.
• Swing53 percent. Barely there, but not zero: the source records were played and the stutter loses its human quality on a dead straight grid.
• ArrangementDo not develop it. Bounce tracks change by adding and removing a single element while the drums run unbroken. Building to a drop is the wrong instinct here.

Reference points

The Showboys, DJ Jubilee, Magnolia Shorty, Juvenile, Mannie Fresh and Cash Money, Katey Red, Big Freedia and Nicky da B. Named as reference points for the sound, not as endorsements or as anyone to imitate.