Grafting a beat onto the rap was New York's contribution to an existing genre. Field hollers, talking blues and other African American forms go back to the days of slavery and even earlier. Only in a New York-centric media world such as this nation's could such a conceit actually be bought into.
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Is Hip-Hop dead?
- Thread starter vchimpanzee
- Start date
Point being; just because it's got a beat and played by African American's, doesn't mean the roots of Hip Hop are in Africa. That's an over-simplification.
Again, the idea of talking rather than singing lyrics of sadness, frustration or anger is not a Noo Yawk concept. Yes, the beat and the instrumentation (or use of synthesized or sampled sounds) originated in the Bronx, but both need words to become hip-hop.
The Bronx is going to be the location of the Universal Hip Hop Museum, which is scheduled to open in 2024.
Hip Hop | Official Record of Hip Hop Culture | UHHM
Learn all about hip hop history, music, and culture from the Universal Hip Hop Museum! Located in the Bronx, the birthplace of hip hop, this museum has it all!
uhhm.org
I have heard the word on numerous occasions, long after the final episode of The Ed Sullivan Show.I don't believe that I've heard anyone use the term, "youngsters" since Ed Sullivan!
Jazz is not and never was the same as what came to be called "R&B". We are talking about the music of WWRL, WJMO, WDIA, WLIB, WCIN, WYLD, WVOL, WMBM, WLOU, WOKJ, WHAT and many others.
Take a look at this "Negro Market" supplement of Sponsor from 1958
There is a listing of nearly every "Negro" station in the US part way through.
I began at WJMO a year later. We did not call any of what was programmed as "jazz" and, in fact, our FM played jazz and had zero duplication with WJMO on music.
Urban is a term now being phased out. An "urban" station plays what used to be called "R&B" and now, we are starting to call the stations "R&B" again instead of urban.
But it was not used to describe rhythm music for white people until Alan Freed started using the term at WJW in Cleveland..
Not really. What we call Rock 'n Roll sprang from rhythm, blues, country and more in the 50's, but it was a fusion of many styles, from Little Richard to Buddy Holly.
In fact, rhyming half-spoken and half-sung music is part of the most native styles in Puerto Rico and the Greater Antilles, and formed a basis for reggaetón and when I had a chance for a long over-coffee talk with Daddy Yankee, he told me how much that music dating back many, many decades influenced him and the genre of "Hispanic Urban".
It's nothing new. It is, in fact, a version of a scat in a jazz song.
"In vocal jazz, scat singing is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all.[2][3] In scat singing, the singer improvises melodies and rhythms using the voice as an instrument rather than a speaking medium. "
But "rock" became the name for AOR stations' music, while Top 40 was what the WABC and KHJ's of the world played.
Let me guess, older white male?
You could use that generalization for several types of music. Doesn't mean the roots are in Africa. Grunge out of the 90's comes to mind.
Jazz was our music! It was not R&B. It was, however, based on music originated by African-Americans.
Although once again, the term "Jazz" is being used to refer to instrumental R&B.
To make things even more confusing, WBCY in Charlotte NC was "rock". But it sure looked like Top 40 to me. I don't have information from that era but I think the same was true of WKZQ "Rock 102" in Myrtle Beach SC. Both stations ended up doing what was called Hot Adult Contemporary years later. WKZQ claimed to be Top 40 but was quite conservative in the early 80s.
I remember when the term was first used. "urban" was not supposed to be a station for African Americans, though most of the artists were Black. WPEG in Charlotte NC actually played "Jump" by Van Halen.
I was trying to think how Hall & Oates were connected. Then I remembered. The definition of "urban" is that includes "I Can't Go for That".
Claiming any Hall and Oates songs from the 70's or 80's is considered 'urban' would be like claiming somehow an unripe banana and a Taco Bell burrito are the same thing. One could technically eat either, but that's factually where the connection ends.
In the '60s, the Young Rascals' "Groovin'" charted Soul as well as Hot 100. In the '80s, "Easy Lover" charted Soul as well as Hot 100 even though the song was rock/pop in typical Phil Collins style; Phillip Bailey just sang a verse, which didn't change the fact that the genre of the recording wasn't R&B. (Note: Forgive me if I don't have the correct names that Billboard was using for what is now its Hot Urban chart. At various times, it was Hot Soul, Hot R&B, Hot Black and heaven knows what else.)
Oh, and Hall and Oates' "Sara Smile" was a top 10 hit on the Soul/R&B/Black chart. It was a soul ballad with two white guys singing, just as urban as anything else on that chart back then.
Not quite on target but the local CHR/Rhythmic played all the early Adele songs at the time.
Do songs from Adele come with roots from Africa, like CTListener claims? Answer: No.
The station played Adele because she was popular with their audience at the time. They probably don't play those songs now, anymore than a CHR/Pop would play Country crossovers past their recurrent stage. I said it wasn't quite on target because I was referring to a CHR/Rhythmic station and not an Urban one.
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