HexD

HexD (also known as surge^[1]) is a microgenre of hip-hop music that emerged in the late 2010s to early 2020s, characterized by heavy use of bitcrushing, mixed with sped-up and pitched-up vocals, resulting in a distorted, digital, hazy and psychedelic sound.

HexD
Other names	Crushed trap (early) surge hex hexxed
Stylistic origins	Hyperpop trap breakbeat emo rap lo-fi electronic trance cloud rap digicore
Cultural origins	Late 2010s to early 2020s; United States
Typical instruments	Drum machine autotune synthesizer pitch shifter sampler hi-hats
Subgenres
Krushclub krushfunk
Fusion genres
Sextrance
Other topics
Internet rap microgenre sigilkore internet aesthetics

Notable acts include $pirit Gurlz, Fax Gang, Hexcastcrew, Sienna Sleep, Yabujin, purity://filter and Reptilian Club Boyz.^[2][3]

Etymology and characteristics

HexD is primarily characterized by the use of bitcrushing, a production technique that produces distortion through the reduction of bandwidth and digital audio data. HexD artists usually apply bitcrushing to specific instruments or the entire master track, speeding and pitching up vocals, as well as overall instrumentation.^[4]

The term hexD originates from a style of DJ mixing that makes extensive use of bitcrushing and digital effects, a process described as “hexxing” a song. The phrase is also a play on the hex editor software HxD.^[5]

The visual aesthetics of HexD draws influence from anime, internet aesthetics and early web 2.0 era iconography and artwork primarily associated with the 2006 online GIF-editor Blingee.^[5]

History

Origins

In 2011, Untranced released a mixtape titled "Deleted Seniors," which featured EDM music mixed with heavy bitcrushing, marking one of the first times the extreme use of the effect was incorporated as an aesthetic quality in music.^[5] Although the use of bitcrushing in trap music was originally pioneered by West Coast-based producer she_skin. The term "hexD" was later coined by Hexcastcrew member Stacy Minajj, who released the DJ mix Rare RCB hexD.mp3 in late 2019, which samples and remixes songs from the influential online rap collective Reptilian Club Boyz.^[6]

Subsequently, YouTube channel and netlabel Dismiss Yourself, which focused on obscure internet music, uploaded the Stacy Minajj RCB mix to their channel on August 23, 2019, which became instrumental to the wider proliferation of the hexD genre.^[7][4] On April 5, 2021, the label released the various artists compilation album Surge Compilation Vol. 1, which helped popularize the movement.^[7][8][9][3]

See also

• Hyperpop
• Digicore
• Bitcrusher
• Internet aesthetics
• Microgenre
• Sigilkore
• Internet rap