The R&B that came after 2010 — Frank Ocean, The Weeknd, Solange, H.E.R., SZA, Daniel Caesar — absorbed the vocabulary of trap (sub-808 kicks, half-time feel, hi-hat rolls) and applied it to song-form R&B. The drumming is sparser than 90s R&B, often much sparser; the production is more atmospheric, with reverb and tape effects making the kit feel suspended in space.
For a drummer translating this onto a kit, the challenge is restraint. There's a temptation to fill the spaces; the genre's whole point is that the spaces are filled by the production (synth pads, vocal samples, sub-bass), not by drum activity. Your job is to commit to playing less than feels comfortable and let the bar breathe.
Sub-808 on a Kit
In modern R&B production, the kick is often a sub-808 — a long, decaying low note pitched to a specific musical key, more of a bass-instrument event than a percussion event. There's no clean acoustic equivalent. The closest is a low floor-tom (the 16-inch on most kits) hit softly, with the head tuned low and slightly open so it has decay. Combine it with the kick on the same beat for the punch. We notate this as a floor-tom note (a/4); read the tip for the touch.
Hat-Rolls in R&B Context
Modern R&B uses trap-style hat-rolls but uses them sparingly — once or twice per 4-bar phrase, not constantly. They function as fills, not ornaments. We'll practice one in the hat-roll exercise and one in the form.
Exercises
Quarter-note hat (not 8ths!), snare on 2 and 4, kick on 1 and 3. Half-time feel. The sparseness is the lesson. At ♩=72 every event is exposed and the bar feels long. Don't fill the space. Loop for three minutes; the groove only starts to feel right once you stop trying to make it feel like more.
Floor-tom on the & of 3 — this is the 808 stand-in, played softly with a slightly open floor-tom tuning so it has long decay. Pair it with the kick on beat 3 (so the kick attacks and the floor-tom resonates after). Snare on 2 and 4, hat on 8ths. The floor-tom should sound LOW — felt as much as heard. If your floor-tom is muffled, take some dampening off; you want resonance for this to read as a sub-bass moment.
Same hat-roll idea as hiphop-classic Ex 3 — beat 4 turns into four 16ths on the hat — but at modern R&B tempo and with a lighter touch. The roll reads as production rather than as a fill; it's there to push into the next bar without feeling like a drum solo. Use this once every 4 or 8 bars in real playing, not every bar. The roll lands the next beat 1 exactly on the click.
Quarter, two 8ths, quarter, two 8ths on the hat — sparse. Snare lands on 2 and on the & of 4 (anticipated). Kick on 1, floor-tom 808 on the & of 3 (in the feet voice this time, replacing the kick — the 808 itself stands in for the kick). The result is a fragmented, atmospheric groove that feels suspended. This is paraphrased modern R&B vocabulary; the shape is common to a lot of post-2012 R&B production. Tempo can drift to ♩=68–74 depending on the song. Loop for three minutes; don't fill the spaces.