Programme notes
L'Trimm - Cars with the Boom (Official Music Video)
Summary
A 1988 single by L'Trimm, a Miami teen duo whose whole aesthetic was built around loving car audio systems more than the boys who owned them. The production is pure Miami bass: a Roland TR-808 pushed until the low end distorts, almost nothing else in the mix, and two deadpan voices trading lines over the top.
Why it matters
Miami bass was engineered for car subwoofers rather than radio, and this is one of the clearest examples of a record designed around where it would be heard. It also sits in a small, odd tradition of songs about sound systems themselves, and its flat conversational delivery reads as a direct ancestor of a lot of later hip-hop deadpan.