Let’s face it: in beatmaking one of the most important things is the drums. Drums are the signature in conjunction with the melodies of a producer, especially in boom bap. Since we are expecting (and it’s already happening) a return of boom bap beats we carefully selected what we think are the best drum kits for boom bap. Some of these are available through reddit and some are available with Splice or other websites. Below you can find a list of these.
9th Wonder Drum Kit
9th Wonder can be described as an already living legend. He has worked with NAS, J Cole, Kendrick and the list continues. His ability to cut flip multiple samples is unique and he’s a legend of boom bap. His drum kit isn’t sold any more by The Drum Broker, but you can still find it in the deepest ocean of the internet.
Beat Butcha Filth series
If you’re angry and you’re looking for dark, obscure and gritty Griselda vibes, then this series is for you. The Beat Butcha Filth series (available at TheDrumBroker) is probably the best drum kit for this kind of boombap. Forget overmixed drum shots, these drum kits are raw and nasty. It’s either love or hate, we let you decide, but if you look for that edgy, even boxy sounding drums, this is for you.
BeatProduction Ultimate Boom Bap Drum Kit Bundle
BeatProduction is a brand with an extensive collection of sounds for Hip Hop.
I had the pleasure to jam some samples from their Ultimate Boom Bap Drum Kit Bundle, and I’ve been able to program some head-nodding drum breaks that sounded like they were sampled.
The bundle counts something like 2500+ samples, all carefully sorted in subfolders, ready to be dragged and dropped into your next project.
These kits are going to be my first stop whenever I browse for drums that suit this genre.
With the huge variety of samples available, you can experiment with layering to make your own and unique drum hits!
Ultimate Boom Bap Drum Kit Bundle
Havoc Infamous Series
Unless you’ve been living on another planet you have heard Havoc’s masterpieces with Mobb Deep like “Shook Ones, PT.II” or “Survival of the Fittest”. With his do or die attitude Havoc has gained the status of living legend as a beatmaker and rapper. His “Infamous Series” in partnership with Splice is a serious mine of gold for every beatmaker who loves that classic Mobb Deep sound. It isn’t huge in terms of number of samples (123) but they are definitely great drum sounds.
HIT KIT v3
The Hit Kit v3 is a legendary kit used on countless hits. But why is “Hit Kit” on a boom bap list? Well, because it has everything you should look for making a boom bap hit. From FXs to rim shots, perc loops and kick drums. It sounds classic but modern. Another great plus of this drumkit is the organization: it reminded us of the great layout of the KSHMR’s packs.
The Hit Kit is made by Holger Lagerfeldt and it’s available through hitkitsamples.com
lunch77 drum kits
Reddit user Lunch77 has gained a reputation in the beatmakers community for his stable release of artist inspired drum kits. It is worth mentioning even if his work is not strictly boom bap, however give this guy a chance because some of his drum kits are fire. You can just search for lunch77 on r/drumkits.
rhythm-lab (breaks)
Rhythm Lab is an independent sample label, very famous for the breaks and the vinyl cuts. In their website you can find a ton of freebies as well as full sample packs, but they did in particular an outstanding work at cutting and collecting high quality drum breaks from records. There’s this section on their website where you can download these breaks both in wav or in rex2 format. Keep in mind that these breaks have been cutted from actual records, so use them at your own risk.
The Kount
Independent artist “The Kount” has been on fire lately. His work can be described as “J Dilla on steroids”. There isn't a lot of information around this producer, he’s from Toronto and his work slaps. He started the drumkit series “Kount Drums” and at the moment of writing he’s at volume 4. He also released a drum kit for Splice and we highly recommend it if you want acoustic drums samples that slap like an electronic record. His sample store can be found at this link.
Ultimate Boom Bap Drum Kit
The ultimate boombap drum kit is a drum kit hosted at soundpacks.com. It’s a very famous collection of classic boom bap sounds. We can’t guarantee that every sound in there is royalty free, but hey, it’s a free download with more than 2k sounds.
The Ultimate Boom Bap Drum Kit Bundle features the following packs:
Final advice
If you want to truly get the vibe of boom bap stay away from EDM producers who started to make hip hop drums just to profit. Stick with hip hop artists or sample labels who are specialized in Boom Bap.
The Drum Broker is a great website for finding small artists selling drum kits, also be sure to search if your favourite independent beat makers are selling drum kits: you get great drums plus you help the artist to raise money so it’s a win-win situation.
