Chopper (rap)

Chopper (rap)
Stylistic origins	Hip hop
Cultural origins	Mid-1990s, Cleveland, Chicago, Kansas City
Typical instruments	Vocals
Regional scenes
Midwest hip hop

Chopper is a hip hop music style that originated in the Midwest and features fast-paced rhyming or rapping. This is considered the main contribution to rap music by Midwest hip hop artists, though in the early 1990s it had spread to California with artists at "The Good Life" such as Ellay Khule, Freestyle Fellowship, CVE, Riddlore and many other Project Blowed affiliates. Dayton Family and Twista who were out at the same time in the early 1990s ushered in the fast style rap when it gained popularity in the mid-1990s with the emergence of award-winning rap artists such as the Cleveland-based rappers Bone Thugs-n-Harmony and Chicago-based rapper Twista. The style of rap eventually spread to other regions all across the world as well.

In the late 1990s, Tech N9ne, a previously underground rap artist, popularized the chopper style among his strong fanbase, and from 2002 to 2011 released a number of songs in collaboration with other chopper-style artists exclusively in this fast-paced style of rap. Chopper style places an emphasis on speed of pronunciation, and as such is commonly attributed to some of the fastest rappers in the world, such as Krayzie and Bizzy Bone, Twista, Tech N9ne, Twisted Insane, Busta Rhymes, Rebel XD, Krizz Kaliko and Snow Tha Product.

The word "chopper" can simply be used for any rapper that uses a fast-paced style in his or her lyrics. The term was first used in street and hip hop slang to refer to the AK-47 assault rifle. The word has also been used as an informal word for helicopter. The linkage to AK-47 and helicopter and their rapid response times with respect to their functions may have an analogous relation to fast-paced rap. One of the first rappers who popularized this style of rap, Twista, in a song with Tech N9ne entitled "Worldwide Choppers" implied this in his lyrics, "I'm finna be usin it as energy, watch how radiant I'ma be. Like a helicopter when the words fly."

Chopper was used to loosely describe the style of fast-paced rap, but the usage of the term was made more official when rap artist Tech N9ne released a series of collaboration rap songs with other chopper-style rap artists from around the world in 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2015 including "Midwest Choppers" and "Midwest Choppers 2", "Worldwide Choppers" and "Speedom (Worldwide Choppers 2)".

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