What's it about?
Dance-Hop is about merging together offbeat rhythms with constant, 4-on-the-floor ones. The funkiness of hip hop with the driving beats of club music, merging with some of the most uplifting and sexy synths to make a genre so danceable that it could turn a school disco into an underground exclusive clubnight!
It's not a new idea to merge hip hop and dance, but it's never really hit the charts with any weight in the past - the Hip House fad in the 80s briefly combined rap with dance beats, but it's taken a while for the crossover to really find its feet and become accepted in its own right as a chartworthy genre.
How did it start to get popular?
When hip hop and R&B artists such as Flo Rida, Taio Cruz, Will.i.am, Usher, and Akon all followed suit in adding dance and euro pop elements to their songs, the style was cemented into the minds of the masses. Massive hits like "sexy bitch", "dynamite" and "OMG" have really pushed the synth heavy sound to the fore of pop music.
Why is Dance Hop so club-friendly?
The undeniably danceable 4 on the floor kick drum beat that carries the song has been proven again and again to be a success in the club atmosphere, combining that with electro house synths associated so strongly with summer parties and the vocals from rap and R&B give the clubgoers hooks to sing along with. It has it all.
Get yourself over to primeloops to grab "Da Sound of Bounce" for a start - that pack pretty much sums the genre up perfectly. Experimenting with conventionally dance-y sample packs in a hip hop context (try alternating between a dance beat and a hip hop one) can be a sure-fire success too!
Give square wave synths a chance and be generous with the glistening top end to get that uplifting feel. Most importantly, when writing it, make sure you can't resist dancing to it as you're laying those synthlines down!
