It became a cornerstone of the emerging electronic, dance and hip-hop genres, popularized by early hits such as "Planet Rock" by Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force and "Sexual Healing" by Marvin Gaye.

He made extensive modifications to the Ace Tone drum machine, creating his own rhythms and wiring it through his organ's expression pedal to accent the percussion.

[9][12] Though they aimed to emulate real percussion, the prohibitive cost of memory chips drove them to design sound‑generating hardware instead of using samples (pre-recorded sounds).

[13] Masahide Sakuma, member of Japanese synthpop band Plastics, also provided some input on the 808's development, outlining his requirements for a drum machine that supported parallel output and could program the rhythm while tuning each instrument.

[14] The 808 imitates acoustic percussion: the bass drum, snare, toms, conga, rimshot, claves, handclap, maraca, cowbell, cymbal and hi-hat (open and closed).

[2] Fact described them as a combination of synthesizer tones and white noise that resemble "bursts coming from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop" more than a real drum kit.

[18] The bass drum decay control allows users to lengthen the sound, creating uniquely low frequencies that flatten slightly over time, possibly not by design.

[21] The 808 includes volume knobs for each voice, numerous audio outputs and a DIN sync port (a precursor to MIDI) to synchronize with other devices.

[14] Before its official release, an early prototype unit was also rented out to Japanese electronic music group Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO).

Roland's chief engineer Tadao Kikumoto was initially unaware of this, so he was surprised when he heard the TR-808 during YMO's Budokan 1980 live performance broadcast on FM radio.

[26] Several more records featured the 808 the following year, including the Japanese albums BGM by Yellow Magic Orchestra[27] and Welcome Back by Plastics,[14] as well as the Australian single "Nobody Told Me" by The Monitors.

[15] Its ease of use,[7] affordability and idiosyncratic sound earned it a cult following among underground musicians and producers,[15] and it became a cornerstone of the developing electronic and hip-hop genres.

[2][31] Flavorwire wrote that the 808 is now so ubiquitous that "its beats are almost a language of their own", with sounds recognizable even to listeners who do not know what drum machines are, and so "you also notice when somebody messes with them or uses them in unusual contexts".

[13] The New Yorker wrote that the "trembling feeling of [the 808 bass drum], booming down boulevards in Oakland, the Bronx and Detroit, are part of America's cultural DNA".

[13] The producer Rick Rubin popularized the technique of lengthening the bass drum decay and tuning it to different pitches to create basslines.

[37] In 1982, Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force released their single "Planet Rock", which used the 808 to create "strange, futuristic" percussion that was popular in clubs.

[38] The track influenced the development of electronic and hip-hop music[32] and subgenres including Miami bass and Detroit techno, and popularized the 808 as a "fundamental element of futuristic sound".

The New Yorker wrote that it triggered "the big bang of pop's great age of disruption, from 1983 to 1986", and that its "defiantly inorganic timbres ... sketched out the domain of a new world of music".

[13] According to Slate, it was instrumental in pop music's shift from conventional structure and harmonic progression to "thinking in terms of sequences, discrete passages of sound and time to be repeated and revised ad infinitum".

[40] In the 1984 Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense, the singer David Byrne performs "Psycho Killer" accompanied by an 808,[41] stumbling against its "gunshot"-like sounds.

[3][44] It has been referenced in lyrics by artists including the Beastie Boys, Beck, Outkast, Kelis, TI, Lil Wayne, Britney Spears, Beyoncé, R Kelly and Robbie Williams.

[46] In 2017, Roland released the TR-08, a miniaturized 808 featuring an LED display, MIDI and USB connections, expanded sequencer control and a built-in speaker.