Bass. It’s the sonic foundation of music. The layer of sound that creates heart-pounding sonic energy, makes you nod your head and instantly helps you recollect a song after only a few seconds. Musical bass notes can also reach below the limits of human hearing (about 20Hz) where you are no longer hearing the sound but perceiving it through a sense of touch. You’re literally feeling the music.

Not all bass is created equal though. To get the most out of your music, you need a quality format like CDs, high-res streaming files or vinyl, as well as capable full-range loudspeakers , or better yet, an SVS subwoofer, to re-create the full dynamic impact and extreme low frequency extension present in music, especially rap and hip hop.

Hip hop started as, and remains to this day, the soundtrack of the streets. The graphic lyrics and melodic beats can transport you to the street corner, nightclub, concert arena, or the studio with stories and prose set to infectious beats. What defines those beats? Bass of course.

Hip hop music has woven itself into the fabric of nearly every industry globally like no other genre before it. Many of the drum beats, horn notes, high hat hits and piano keystroke combinations strung together over the last 40+ years have created iconic sounds that are recognizable within seconds of hitting your ears. Not to mention the number of classic rock, jazz, blues and EDM tracks sampled within various hip hop songs.

We recently asked the SVS Facebook and Instagram communities what hip hop and rap tracks they turn up when demonstrating their SVS subwoofer, and the response was overwhelming! We’ve narrowed the list down to 100 Hip Hop “Bass Bangers” and created a playlist on our YouTube channel so you can enjoy all the dancefloor-shaking, room-rumbling fun on your system at home. We also included links to both posts at the end so you can get the full list of suggestions.

This is not meant to be a “Best of All-Time” playlist, just a collection from the SVS community. Have more suggestions? We’d love to see them in the comments.

While this post is about recommending and discussing great subwoofer demo tracks for hip hop music, if you are interested in learning how to choose a subwoofer based on sound quality, check out 5 Things to Listen for When Choosing a Subwoofer.