chill, a term derived from a slang injunction to relax, emerged in the early and mid-1990s as a catch-all term for various styles of relatively mellow, slow-tempo music made by contemporary producers in the electronic music scene. The genres associated with chill-out are mostly Ambient, Trip-hop, Nu jazz, Ambient House, Ambient Trance, New Age and other sub-genres of Downtempo—a major branch of electronic music. Sometimes the Easy Listening sub-genre Lounge is considered to belong to the chill-out collection as well.

Chill-Hop brings the hip-hop feel and mellows it down for a relaxed listen.