Chillhop blends the words chill and hip hop and is used, often interchangeably with lo-fi hip hop and jazzhop, for laid-back instrumental beats with jazzy chords, gentle drums and warm textures. Where some lo-fi leans towards a hazy, deliberately degraded sound, music sold as chillhop tends to be a little cleaner and brighter, with guitar, keys or horns over a softened boom-bap pulse.
The word is also a brand. Chillhop Music, run by Bas van Leeuwen and based in Rotterdam, grew out of a blog started in 2013 and became a label that promoted producers through free singles and EPs, before its YouTube live stream turned it into one of the genre’s main hubs. Its Essentials compilations gather many producers on a single release. On Mondolofi, chillhop sits at the livelier end of the spectrum, well suited to mornings and to the idea-gathering stage of a project.