Downtempo is a more beat-driven and focused ambient music with a slow-paced beat and BPM in the 90 - 110 range. People often use trip-hop as a synonym, but I feel there are 2 schools of thought.
Downtempo is the kind of music you could play both as a background soundtrack to whatever chill thing you do at home, but also as warm-up music before a live show or in the early hours in a bar. Its slowness and melody-heavy build-ups make it the perfect end of a set in case you're playing in the early hours of the day as the sun is slowly making its way up. Genre's origins are intertwined with the wave of slow-paced electronic music that has gained popularity in the late '80s and early '90s. With the rise of the Ibiza rave culture mid to late '90s, DJs had brought this popularity by playing such music towards the end of their sets.
