Downtempo
Downtempo is a broad style of electronic music with slow, relaxed beats, made for listening and winding down more than for dancing.
It emerged in the United Kingdom in the late 1980s and spread in the 1990s through chill-out rooms, the quieter spaces at clubs and raves where DJs played slower music. Tracks usually run at around 90 beats per minute and put layered, atmospheric sound ahead of catchy riffs, often drawing on hip hop, dub and jazz. It has a stronger beat than ambient, and trip hop is usually counted as one of its branches.
Artists it is known for: Kruder & Dorfmeister, Thievery Corporation, Bonobo.
- Family
- Electronic & Dance
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A genre
- From
- United Kingdom, late 1980s
- Also called
- downbeat
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 4%
About 3,500 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have downtempo among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Downtempo artists
Nujabes
Portishead
Massive Attack
Air
Boards of Canada
Flume
Moby
Enigma
Sneaker Pimps
The xxThe downtempo artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.