Backbeat

A rhythmic emphasis on the second and fourth beats of a four-beat measure, commonly marked by snare drum hits in popular music.

Meter (music): The organization of musical beats into recurring patterns of strong and weak pulses. A backbeat gives distinctive emphasis to beats two and four within a four-beat meter.
African-American music: Music created within African American communities, encompassing diverse traditions and genres. The backbeat developed within musical traditions shaped by African American rhythmic practices.
Rhythm and blues: A popular music genre rooted in African American blues, gospel, and jazz traditions. Its recordings helped popularize the backbeat before and alongside rock and roll.
Dance music: Music composed or performed primarily to accompany dancing. The backbeat gives dancers a regular, readily felt point of emphasis.
Snare drum: A percussion instrument whose rattling snares give its drumhead a sharp, cutting sound. Snare strikes commonly mark the backbeat in popular music.
African-American musical traditions: A broad inheritance of musical practices developed in African American communities, including call-and-response and layered rhythms. These practices form part of the cultural history behind the backbeat.
Rock music: A broad popular music genre centered on amplified instruments and derived partly from rock and roll. Many rock styles use a strong backbeat to anchor the band.
Drum kit: A set of drums and cymbals played by one drummer, especially in popular music and jazz. The drum kit made a single performer able to project the backbeat across an ensemble.
Syncopation: The displacement or disruption of expected rhythmic accents in music. A backbeat shifts emphasis away from the first beat, though its regular placement is not necessarily syncopation.
Blues: A music genre and tradition rooted in African American communities, characterized by expressive vocals and recurring harmonic patterns. Blues helped establish backbeat patterns later heard across popular music.

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