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Hip hop music, or as it is also called, loop, rapping, freestyle, DJing, scratching, sampling and beatboxing, stemmed from the Bronx during the 1970s. Professionals say that even though the term rap is used synonymously with hip hop, it denotes its own practices of an entire subculture.

To differentiate the terms, rapping, also called MCing, is a vocal style in which the artist speaks lyrically, in rhyme and verse, generally to an instrumental or synthesized beat. Beats are almost always in 4/4 time signatures and can be created by looping portions of other songs, usually by a DJ. Modern beats incorporate synthesizers, drum machines, and live bands. A rapper may write, memorize or improvise their lyrics.

The father of the term hip hop is Keith Cowboy, a rapper from the 70s who performed with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Cowboy came up with the word when teasing a friend who was in the U.S. Army, mimicking the cadence of marching soldiers he sang hip/hop/hip/hop. The term was quickly picked up by others during the time and it stuck.

Hip hop grew in popularity in the 70s with the increase in block parties, especially in New York City’s Bronx. At these block parties, a DJ was used, spinning popular genres of music. Getting creative, the DJ began isolating the percussion breaks of popular songs. This style was drawn out to include funk, soul and disco, drawing out the then short percussion breaks with an audio mixer and two records.

This in turn created various turntable techniques such as beat mixing and matching, scratching, beat juggling and remixing. DJ’s and MCs would then often add call and response chants, often comprised of a basic chorus, which allowed the performer to gather his thoughts. This evolved into the MC getting more varied in their vocal and rhythmic approach, incorporating brief rhymes with a sexual or scatological theme.

By the 80s, the usage of drum machines influenced the sound of hip hop. What was called over time sampling technology became more advanced. Lyrics began to change as well with words that were more metaphorical and complex. Some rappers brought the sound to mainstream audiences with appearances in commercials. Artists like LL Cool J also became a household name due to his success.

Hip hop was primarily an American sound and was almost completely unknown outside of the United States during the early 80s. When breakdancing became popular in places like Germany, Japan, Australia and South Africa, rapping and hip hop followed.

In the late 90s, hip hop started to diversify. The 90s is primarily known though for its hip hop rap artist Eminem. Eminem brought hip hop even further into main stream culture with his successful platinum album The Slim Shady. In the year 2000, Eminem sold over ten million copies of The Marshall Mathers album. Alternative hip hop became popular as well with artists such as The Roots, Gnarls Barkley and Mos Def.

By 2005, sales of hip hop music in the United States took a dive. Many questioned whether mainstream hip hop was dying. Speculation of the decline was that people were tired of the violence, degrading and negative lyrics.
Will hip hop continue to survive or will it evolve into another form and style of music as most music already has?

Jeff Bachmeier is owner of 977music.com, an online music and online radio station network providing live streaming Internet Radio channels with music from the 50’s thru Today. Users can also choose to create their own customized on demand playlist through their own social media profile. For more information please visit http://www.977music.com.

Some have labeled the music of the 90s the worse in history. But others think it some of the best music due to its originality and variety. Which is it?

The 90s was a time of new subgenres, old bands coming back to life and an era of one-hit-wonders. It was a time when hip-hop was displacing metal as the top-selling genre. Subgenres that were being created included things such as rap-rock. And then there were bands like Creed and Nickelback who were labeled as creating what was called butt-rock, music which focused less on complexity and musical talent and more on radio-friendliness as well as emotional impact on its listeners. And yet, the 90s was the era of pop hits that you either found annoying or loved such as Achy Breaky Heart by Billy Ray Cyrus, Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice, Macarena by Los Del Rio, and Candle In The Wind by Elton John.


The early years of the 1990s began with a surge in popularity for music genres like techno (often called dance or house music). Groups like Technotronic entered the Billboard charts with big hits like “Pump Up the Jam” and “Get Up (Before the Night is Over)”. Similarly, the hip-hop music scene achieved popularity with artists like MC Hammer and Tone Loc.

Between 1992 and 1993, with the popularity of sexual lyrics dominating the airwaves, alternative music began making mainstream radio. Bands like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden became common names. Their lyrics were new and words that people who felt outside of society connected to. Songs like Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” marked the beginning of the grunge and alternative rock phase that remained popular throughout the mid-1990s. 

The hopelessness that grunge bands sang about started wearing thin by late 1995.

And people were looking for something fresh and new, something that felt happy. To fill the niche were bands like Hootie and the Blowfish, Sister Hazel, and The Bodeans. Melodies were upbeat and lyrics were positive. These bands also created a resurgence in songs that dealt with love and relationships through ballads and happier-sounding songs. “All For You” by Sister Hazel was a popular song about the things a person does for another in a relationship while, contrastingly, “Let Her Cry” by Hootie and the Blowfish dealt with a tearful breakup that deeply hurt both people. 

”Happy rock” paved the way for the “bubblegum pop” that followed in the waning years of the decade. Artists such as Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera quickly dominated the mainstream pop music scene well into the late 1990s and beyond. Surprisingly enough, the sexual lyrics and innuendos also came back in the songs of this era that was one popular in the early years of the decade, but they were more blatant than before. Videos were more sexual in nature as well.

Then there were the boy bands. The Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, and N’Sync found a resurgence that older boy bands such as the New Kids on the Block from the late 1980s may have seen. 

Was the 90s a time of great music or confusion? Such a decision may be too subjective to make. Professionals say one can’t judge pop music until another generation of kids are born – will they be drawn to it and recreate it or think it is the worse thing they ever heard. Seems like only time can tell.

Jeff Bachmeier is owner of 977music.com, an online music and online radio station network providing live streaming Internet Radio channels with music from the 50’s thru Today. Users can also choose to create their own customized on demand playlist through their own social media profile. For more information please visit http://www.977music.com.

The term ‘rock and roll’ is now so familiar to us that few ask where it got its origins and how the name came about. While there are many theories on the beginnings of rock and roll, many agree it was dubbed this name after World War II. The sound, was then born from a fusion of rhythm and blues along with influences from the African American culture as well as from America’s country music and gospel music scenes. Some say rock and roll dates back further in country records of the 1930s, blues records of the 1920s even though it was never labeled as such.

Despite the uncertainty of the timeline of rock and rolls true beginnings, it is believed that the sound did originate in the south due to a conglomeration of different music traditions from the region. From there, it grew due to the migration of many freed slaves and their descendants to major urban centers like Memphis and north to New York City, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland and Buffalo. In these cities, black and white residents were living in close proximity of one another and as a result began emulating one another’s style.

In the 1930s jazz and swing were among the first types of music to present African American sounds for a predominately white audience. This was followed in the 40s by horns, saxophones, shouted lyrics and boogie-woogie beats. During and immediately after World War II, with shortages of fuel and limitations on audiences, large jazz bands were less economical and tended to be replaced by smaller combos, using guitars, bass and drums. This was followed by the development of “jump blues” with its guitar riffs and prominent beats.

Rock and roll continued to evolve for many reasons, one being technology. With the development of the electric guitar, amplifier and microphone, came huge changes in the sound and industry.

Subgenres of ‘rock and roll’ also came out of the changes in the music style. Fusion sounds such as folk with rock coined the term ‘folk-rock’ In the 1970s, rock also included soft rock, glam rock, heavy metal, hard rock, progressive rock, and punk rock. In the 1980s there was New Wave, hardcore punk and alternative rock.

As far as the term “rock and roll”, this may have stemmed either from sexual or spiritual connotations. “Rocking” was a term used by black gospel singers in the American South to mean something akin to spiritual rapture. In 1916 “The Camp Meeting Jubilee,” recorded a song whose lyrics include “We’ve been rocking and rolling in your arms / Rocking and rolling in your arms / In the arms of Moses.” And yet, in 1937, Chick Webb and Ella Fitzgerald recorded “Rock It for Me”, which included the lyric, “So won’t you satisfy my soul with the rock and roll”. At the time, the term ‘roll’ meant having sex. Others say the term rock and roll have nothing to do with sex or being spiritually moved but by the motion of a ship at sea or a train in motion. Nobody knows for certain how the term came about or what it meant as it was quite possible it could have meant all of the above.

More important than the terminology or exact origins of rock and roll, this genre of music is known for its social effects, which were worldwide and on a grand scale. Some believe with the combination of sounds from so many cultures came the greater push for the civil rights movement due to the fact both African American teens and white American teens enjoyed the music. Later, rock and roll was thought to have been the emphasis behind the hippy movement, peace not war as well as the drug culture.

As ambiguous as rock and roll’s beginnings is its effects socially on cultures. Either way, people all over the world are enjoying its sound, whatever it may get called and whatever subgenre may get assigned to it.

Jeff Bachmeier is owner of 977music.com, an online music and online radio station network providing live streaming Internet Radio channels with music from the 50’s thru Today. Users can also choose to create their own customized on demand playlist through their own social media profile. For more information please visit http://www.977music.com.