Listening
Chillhop Beats: What the Genre Is, the Label Behind It and Where to Listen
A plain guide to the warm, jazzy end of hip hop: where the sound came from, the label that shares its name, where to hear it and what the rules are if you want it in a video.
Chillhop beats are smooth, slow hip hop instrumentals with a warm, jazzy feel: soft drums, mellow keys and a round bass line, usually under 100 beats per minute. The word names a sound and a record label: Chillhop Music, a Dutch label that shares the name, has been releasing these beats since 2015.
What chillhop beats are
Chillhop is a sub-genre of hip hop that Hip Hop Music History describes as smooth downtempo hip hop. Its sound is warm and "earthy" rather than bright, the tempo usually sits below 100 beats per minute, and it borrows from jazz, soul, funk and R&B.
The roots go back a long way. Jazz-sampling hip hop took shape in the late 1980s, and producers like Pete Rock and J Dilla made the laid-back, sample-heavy records in the 1990s that chillhop grew out of. Trip hop fed in too. Then in the 2000s Nujabes, often called the godfather of chillhop, made the sound popular, especially with anime fans, through his music for Samurai Champloo.
Chillhop can have vocals, and when it does the rapping is relaxed rather than aggressive. The instrumental versions are what people tend to put on to study or unwind, though, and that is what "chillhop beats" usually means in a search or a playlist title.
Chillhop vs lofi hip hop vs jazzhop
These three overlap so much that the same track can turn up in all three kinds of playlist. Hip Hop Music History notes that "lo-fi hip hop" and "chillhop" took off on YouTube together around 2017, which is why the names get used almost interchangeably. Still, each one leans a slightly different way:
| Name | What it leans towards | Typical texture |
|---|---|---|
| Chillhop | Warm, smooth, jazzy hip hop, often quite polished | Mellow keys, soft drums, round bass |
| Lofi hip hop | A rougher, deliberately unpolished sound | Tape hiss, vinyl crackle, muffled samples |
| Jazzhop | Hip hop built around jazz instruments, sampled or played live | Piano, horns, upright bass, brushed or swung drums |
Treat these as tendencies, not rules. "Lo-fi" really means music that sounds unpolished and home-made, so a lofi track can be dustier than a chillhop one, while a jazzhop track puts the jazz playing up front. If the jazz end is what you like most, my guide to lofi jazz goes deeper into that sound and where to hear it.
The Chillhop Music label
Chillhop Music started in 2013 as a blog run from a small bedroom in the Dutch countryside, according to its own story. The blog grew into a YouTube channel that paired tracks with visuals, and the label says it became the first 24/7 livestream in its genre on the platform. By 2015 it was a record label, and by 2018 its raccoon mascot had become the face of its livestreams. It is based in Rotterdam and reports over 5 billion streams and over 5 million followers.
Its seasonal series is Chillhop Essentials, a compilation for each season of the year. The label's Bandcamp page has editions going back to summer 2019, with autumn 2026 the newest, and an autumn 2019 edition is still up on SoundCloud, so there are years of them to work through.
Some of the artists on its recent releases and compilations:
- Sleepy Fish
- Kupla
- Blue Wednesday
- Axian
- The Deli
- Evil Needle
- Shin-Ski
- Enluv
- Mac Kay
If you like one, the label's artist pages are the quickest way to find more by the same producer.
Where to listen to chillhop beats
There are three ways to listen, and they suit different moods. A livestream plays one continuous stream you can't skip, which is good when you don't want to choose anything. A playlist lets you shuffle and skip. An album or a seasonal compilation plays one set in order, the way the artist or label put it together.
Chillhop Music's own site
The label's site is the most direct place to start. Its livestream player has five channels: Chillhop Radio, Late Night Vibes, Chill Study Beats, Sunny Day and Chillhop Essentials. The player also has tabs for music, visuals and sounds, plus a chat.
The homepage also lists the newest releases, so it is a good way to keep up with the label without following it everywhere.
YouTube
The label's 24/7 livestream started on YouTube. The Chillhop Radio playlist gathers the label's long mixes and compilations, from Chill Study Beats to the seasonal Essentials, under the banner "jazzy/lofi hip hop beats to study/relax to".
YouTube is also home to the wider lofi world, like Lofi Girl's always-on lofi hip hop radio. My guide to the best lofi livestreams covers those streams by mood.
Spotify
On Spotify, the Chillhop Music artist page holds the label's releases, and the label keeps its own playlists there too, so you can skip tracks in a way a stream doesn't.
SoundCloud
The label has been on SoundCloud for years, and older Chillhop Essentials editions are still up there. It's a good place to dig back through the catalogue.
Bandcamp
Bandcamp is where you can buy the releases outright. The label's profile there calls Chillhop "a platform dedicated to finding and sharing the best chilled hiphop, jazzhop and triphop music", and it lists the seasonal Essentials alongside albums like Chillhop at the Diner and Chillhop Solarpunk.
The label also lists Apple Music, Deezer and Amazon Music among the places to listen.
How to pick chillhop beats for what you're doing
Mood labels like "late night" or "sunny" are someone's description, not a measurement, so trust your own ears over the name. A few starting points:
- Studying and focus: stick to instrumentals with a steady beat and not much happening on top. The Chill Study Beats channel is made for this, and my guide to lofi for studying has more on studying with beats like these.
- Working: a long stream like Chillhop Radio saves you from picking tracks every few minutes.
- Late at night: the Late Night Vibes channel is named for exactly this.
- Relaxing or cooking: a seasonal Essentials compilation gives you a varied set that still hangs together.
- Winding down for sleep: go for the softest, slowest tracks you can find and keep the volume low.
If you're new to chillhop, put on Chillhop Radio for an afternoon, then pick one Essentials compilation and listen to it the whole way through. When a track makes you look up, find the artist and follow the thread from there.
If a track pulls your attention away from what you're doing, skip it. The point of chillhop beats is that they sit in the background and keep you company.
Using chillhop beats in your videos and streams
Whether you can use a chillhop track depends entirely on who owns it. Chillhop Music is clear about its own: "We hold all the rights to our music and our music is not royalty-free." It does let creators use it through its Creators Program, with conditions:
- You sign up and connect your channel, and the program covers YouTube and Twitch only.
- You can use only the tracks on your Creators Dashboard.
- You must name the music: the track, artist and link in the video description on YouTube, or a linked channel panel on Twitch.
- You can't play the website's livestream player in your stream, because some of its tracks aren't part of the program.
- You can't re-upload the music to your channel or run your own 24/7 music stream with it.
- You can't remix the tracks, rap or sing over them, or use the label's artwork and logos.
So Chillhop Music tracks work well under a vlog, a study-with-me stream or a gaming stream, as long as you name them. They don't work as the main event of a music channel, and Chillhop asks anyone running one to message it first. Other labels have their own terms, so check the licence every time. My guide to copyright free lofi music for YouTube videos covers the sources made for that.
How to make chillhop videos with Chillframe
Chillhop is a big, growing world. The Chillhop Music label alone reports over 5 billion streams, and people put these beats on to study, work and relax every day, so there's plenty of room for a channel of your own. What you need is music that's yours to publish. You can make it yourself (my guide on how to make lofi music starts from zero), or Chillframe can make the whole video for you: original music, a scene to match, the finished video and the upload to YouTube.
A chillhop channel does well on a steady routine, with new beats going up at the same hour on the same days. Setting that up takes a handful of choices. Start in the Chillhop Painterly style for the warm, jazzy side of the sound, or Jazz Coffeeshop for jazzhop, or type out a scene of your own, like a record shop at night with crates of vinyl under a warm lamp. Leave the audio on Instrumental, the default, which is original music with no singing. Then make it a Series that posts five evenings a week, Monday to Friday at 6pm. Chillframe automatically makes a fresh beat and a fresh scene for every slot and uploads each one with its title, description and tags written. The first video waits for your approval, and with auto-publish on, everything after it is fully hands-off.
One thing it doesn't do is run a 24/7 stream like the label's. Videos are uploads of up to 1 hour, so the way to fill the same listening hours is a library of hour-long chillhop videos that grows with every post. My guide on how to start a lofi YouTube channel covers the rest of the road.
Still Chillhop Painterly scenes in 4K are on the Starter plan, at $19 a month. If you want the scene to move as well, that's a Plus video, from the Creator plan at $49 a month.
Chillhop beats FAQ
Is chillhop the same as lofi hip hop?
They overlap so much that a lot of playlists use both names. As a rough guide, chillhop leans warm, smooth and jazzy, while lofi hip hop leans into a rougher, deliberately unpolished sound with tape hiss and vinyl crackle. Plenty of tracks sit in both.
Who is known as the godfather of chillhop?
Nujabes, the producer whose music for the anime Samurai Champloo made the sound popular with a whole new audience. J Dilla, the Detroit producer, is named alongside him as one of the godfathers of lofi hip hop, and Pete Rock as an early pioneer.
Where can I listen to chillhop beats?
Chillhop Music runs its own livestreams on chillhop.com, with channels like Chillhop Radio and Late Night Vibes. The label is also on YouTube, Spotify, SoundCloud and Bandcamp, along with Apple Music, Deezer and Amazon Music.
Can I use Chillhop Music tracks in my YouTube videos?
Yes, through the Chillhop Creators Program. You sign up, connect your YouTube or Twitch channel, use only the tracks on your Creators Dashboard and name the track, the artist and the label's link in your description. Chillhop says its music is not royalty-free, so that attribution is required.
Can I start a 24/7 chillhop stream with Chillhop Music tracks?
Not with the label's music. The Creators Program does not allow 24/7 music streams or re-uploading the music to your channel. A music channel or stream of your own needs music you made or music licensed for that use.
