Jazzhop, also written jazz hop or jazz-hop, describes hip hop beats whose harmony and colour come straight from jazz: seventh and ninth chords on piano or Rhodes, phrases on muted trumpet or saxophone, round double-bass lines, all laid over a steady hip hop groove. It is mostly instrumental and overlaps heavily with lo-fi hip hop and chillhop; producers and labels often use the three tags for the same records.
The idea goes back to the jazz rap of the late 1980s and early 1990s, when acts such as A Tribe Called Quest and producers such as Pete Rock built tracks on jazz records. The Tokyo producer Nujabes, who drew on that golden-age sound and on spiritual jazz, became the main reference for the instrumental form in the 2000s. In jazz lo-fi the balance tips further towards jazz, with more live-sounding instruments and softer drums.