Snap music is a low tempo hip-hop that started in urban Atlanta where snapping fingers as rhythm marking is used, sometimes uses whistling as an accompaniment. Apparently the term was first coined in Vibe magazine. Some people who have been mentioned as starting the movement are Dem Franchize Boyz, D4L, David Banner, the Ying Yang Twins, and producer Mr. Collipark (a.k.a Michel Crooms, DJ Smurf and Beat-n-Ass).

There are apparently a few know inceptions of early snapping. Bobby Badfingers is a entertainer who calles himself the “fastest snapper in the world”. He performs music on stage and TV and uses his snapping as castanets. John Fare, a lobotomized Canadian performance artist, that thought himself of snapping his lost fingers to a rhythm when made test in the Ramachandran mirrored box. And in fiction, there is an unnamed character on J.L.Borges’ The Garden of Forking Paths who can’t talk thus develops a whole communication system based on snapping.

Some people who use to snap fingers during a singing performance are Frank Sinatra, the 1970’s progressive rocker Gentel Giant, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff from Philadelphia, Gail Wilson and Johnny Cash.

There is a classic scene on the film West Side Story where a performers group snap their fingers as a chorus. Will Smith, the host at Philadelphia's Live 8 concert in 2005, told his audience to snap their fingers at three-second intervals to mark the death of a malnourished, diseased child in Africa who, he confidently said, dies every three seconds. This later became the TV Snap Ads.

Snap music has also been labeled a southern “laid-back crunk”.