What Is Trap Karaoke? Plus Where to Find Hip-Hop & Emo Karaoke

That's the short version. Below I cover how Trap Karaoke started, what a night is like, and how to get tickets without getting scammed. Then I get into emo nights and punk and emo karaoke, and where to find hip-hop and emo karaoke on an ordinary weeknight, no ticket needed.

Trap Karaoke is a live event series built around hip-hop and trap. It was created by Jason Mowatt, who had already started the Washington, D.C., music festival Trillectro. The idea began as a text thread with his friend Jonathan Wall, who gave it its name. The first show was in a Brooklyn lounge that held about 300 people, with no stage and no lighting rig.

The pitch was simple: regular karaoke catalogs barely carry the rap songs people actually want to perform. Trap Karaoke is built around exactly those songs.

How a night works

• It's staged like a concert. There's a host (Lowkey has traveled with the show), crowds packed up against the stage, and lights. It's closer to a sold-out show than to a bar with a TV in the corner.
• Fans take the mic. Audience members get up and perform in front of the room, which can be a crowd of around 1,200 people.
• It's a long night. Mowatt has described the shows as running about four hours.
• Sometimes the artist shows up. Rappers including Pastor Troy, Mannie Fresh, Yo Gotti and Petey Pablo have performed alongside fans.

It got big fast. A partnership with Jordan Brand brought a Trap Karaoke "trap-cam" to the Jordan Brand Classic at Barclays Center in front of about 15,000 people.

Go straight to the official site, trapkaraoke.com. It lists the upcoming stops on the tour, and each one has its own ticket link. The site itself warns about fake tickets from scammers, so buy through the link on the official event page rather than from a stranger's DM.

A few things to check in the official FAQ before you buy:

• Age requirements. There's a section on them. Read it before you buy for a younger friend.
• Refund and bag policies. Worth a look before you pay.
• When to show up. The FAQ recommends arriving early.

FindKaraoke doesn't sell Trap Karaoke tickets or track its tour. For dates, the official site is the source.

Emo Nite: the party that started the wave

Emo Nite started in December 2014, when Morgan Freed and T.J. Petracca talked a bartender at the Short Stop in Echo Park, Los Angeles, into letting them throw a party on a rainy weeknight. About twice the bar's capacity showed up. It's now a recurring party in more than 30 US cities. Emo artists curate the playlists and sometimes play surprise sets, and the crowd sings along to the music it grew up on.

"Emo night" has since become a format of its own: lots of bars and clubs run emo and pop-punk dance parties under their own names. The common thread is a room full of people screaming along to the same choruses.

Emo karaoke

Emo night karaoke takes that crowd and hands it the mic. It's a regular karaoke night, with a host and a song queue, where the songbook leans on 2000s emo, pop-punk and scene anthems. You don't need a great voice. Enthusiasm counts for more, and the room will sing the chorus with you anyway.

Punk rock karaoke (often with a live band)

Punk rock karaoke often swaps the backing track for a real band. One touring version, called Punk Rock Karaoke, had musicians from The Adolescents, Circle Jerks, The Dickies and Goldfinger backing whoever from the crowd got up to sing. Local bands run their own takes on the idea, so if you see "live band karaoke" on a bar's calendar, ask what they play.

Trap Karaoke only comes to town on its tour dates. Plenty of bars run hip-hop or emo karaoke every week, no ticket required. FindKaraoke tags those nights when the venue or host names the theme, so you can find them.

Any karaoke night can be a hip-hop night if you pick the songs. See karaoke tonight for what's on near you, or open your city's page below to browse every night of the week.

Need a song? Start with the best rap karaoke songs for verses you can actually keep up with, or the best R&B karaoke songs if you'd rather sing the hook.

Sources

• Trap Karaoke (official site) and its FAQs
• Trap Karaoke puts hip-hop fans at center of experience, The Boston Globe (July 2016)
• Here's how Trap Karaoke went from a bar to Barclays Center, Scripps News
• Emo Nite, Mike Brown Group event page
• Punk Rock Karaoke live at Foufounes Electriques, Bad Feeling Magazine (April 2017)

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