Crunk is a genre of hip-hop music. Unlike the East Coaststyle of hip hop, crunk has a high-energy and club-oriented feel. Whileother hip hop styles might involve a more conversational vocaldelivery, crunk usually involves hoarse chants and repetitive, simplerefrains. Lyrics are based on a rhythmic bounce, which is veryeffective in a club environment.

Looped drum machine rhythms are usually in the forefront of the mix, with the Roland TR-808being especially popular. A typical crunk song uses four bars of musicgenerated by electronic drums and synthesizers that repeat throughoutthe song, but sometimes includes a break towards the end of the song.Many of the drum machines and rhythms they produce were previously wellknown in specialty genres of dance music. Crunk also employsnon-melodic sound effects such as whistles and synth blips.

The crunk genre originated in the early 1990s, but did not become mainstream until the early 2000s. The first notable crunk single is commonly believed to be "Tear Da Club Up '97" by Three 6 Mafia^{[citation needed]} which appeared in 1997 and reached #29 on the US Rap charts. We Ready: I Declare War is the debut album from Atlanta, Georgia rapper Pastor Troy is most known for his vicious crunk dis track against rival Master P, "No Mo Play In G.A.", which received huge success in 1999^{[citation needed]}. In the year 2003, the crunk genre had surprise hit singles with "Never Scared" (Bone Crusher, featuring Killer Mike and T.I.), "Salt Shaker" (Ying Yang Twins, featuring Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz), "Damn!" (YoungBloodZ featuring Lil Jon, and produced by Lil Jon), and most notably "Get Low" (Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz, featuring the Ying Yang Twins), which reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. By 2004, crunk was in such high demand that superstar R&B singer Usher enlisted Lil Jon to produce his single "Yeah!" which went on to be the biggest hit of 2004, according to Billboard magazine. Lil Jon produced another number-one hit in 2004 with "Goodies" by R&B singer Ciara, featuring Petey Pablo. The release of Hustle and Flow and its Oscar for best original song, "It's Hard out Here for a Pimp", helped crunk reach mainstream American culture. By 2005, however, it was widely perceived that crunk was on the wane^{[citation needed]}, with its appeal primarily confined to Memphis and Atlanta^{[citation needed]}.

Lil Jon and the Eastside Boyz have several albums with crunk in thetitle, such as "Kings of Crunk", "Crunk Juice", "Get Crunk", "We StillCrunk", and "Crunk Rock". Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz often claimto be the "Kings of Crunk" with Rasheeda as the "Queen of Crunk", while Lil' Scrappy is referred to as the "Prince of Crunk"^{[citation needed]}. Ciara is often referred to as the "Princess of Crunk" or the "First Lady of Crunk & B", and Petey Pablo is referred to as the "Godfather of Crunk".