Is hip hop the most influential genre in the world?

From its humble beginnings at block parties in the Bronx to making headline news at Glastonbury, hip hop has triumphed worldwide, influencing everything from media culture to politics. And its versatility means that it’s brilliant for soundtracking a huge range of content.

Ever since its emergence in the late 70s, it’s been used for ads, from Run DMC for Adidas, to Pepsi joining forces with Doja Cat for their Grease-inspired commercial.

Looking for a brilliant movie soundtrack?

Choose hip hop, as Spike Lee did for He Got Game, (the soundtrack was also Public Enemy’s sixth studio album).

Or, watch the classic 8 Mile, featuring Eminem and the Academy Award-winning track ‘Lose Yourself’, or even dive into Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which showcases the genius of Post Malone, DJ Khalil and Infamous.

When it comes to hip hop, we have one of the biggest collections for licensing.

Whether you’re looking for tracks for sport or drama, documentaries or ads, our Beats series has you covered. And because we’re all about offering you the best quality original music, we’ve just added 300 additional hip hop tracks to our catalogue.

Our clients are using hip hop and trap instrumental cues to soundtrack everything from funny, awkward situations to sad, emotive moments, and from serious topics to mystery.

From cloud rap to old school instrumentals, tension trap to comedic cuts, we’ve got the perfect hip hop beat for your brief.

To make it even easier to find your ideal track, we’ve created dedicated hip hop playlists:

• Comedy – Playfully quirky, these are light-hearted beats for comedy or dramedy
• Upbeat – Bring the party and lift the mood with bright, optimistic hip hop
• Motivational – Uplifting, determined and confident – inspire with swagger
• Emotional – Create a reflective mood with emotive hip hop
• Light Tension – From sneaky and suspicious to all-out suspense, select these tension-building beats
• Heavy Tension – Need more drama? Choose our horror-ready beats
• Tasking – Looking for kinetic hip hop? This playlist delivers
• Energetic – Hip hop to accelerate the pace…
• Ambient – …Or chill out with minimalist, textured beats
• Transitions – Dynamic scene openers, bumpers and stings, all with a hip hop flavour

So, whether you’re after trap or 90s, lo-fi, EDM, Jazz or Gangsta, dive into our brand new collection, and find the perfect hip hop for TV, digital content or corporate videos, featuring artists including Skripture, viral superstar Youngr, Jonathan Clark and Matt Goodman.

Want more music? Check out The Collections – from Classical to World Music, Latin genres to creating Maximum Impact for trailers, these tracks have been hand-picked by our in-house experts.  

Explore more about the history of hip hop with our deep dives – the all-time best-selling hip hop albums, the genre’s female trailblazers, plus iconic ads and movies featuring hip hop soundtracks.