Urban
Origins
Urban music can be traced back to jazz and soul roots; in New York in the mid 70’s, parties would be hosted where DJs would be hired to play Jazz and Soul records rather than having a live band. These DJs soon found that the party-goers would dance more to the instrumental sections, so started to just play the instrumental sections of songs, leading to the development of the ‘breakbeat’. Inspired by Jamaican ‘toasting’, DJs started to speak rhythmically over the music they were playing, which eventually lead to rapping. The combination of breakbeats and rapping became early hip-hop music.
Musical Fingerprints
Instrumentation: Vocals (rapping), drum machines, turntable, sampler, synths.
Rhythm: Syncopation in bass with simple, solid beat.
Structure: Normally a verse-chorus structure.
Harmony: Harmony is of little importance.
Technological Fingerprints
Originally, urban music had a lo-fi quality, but has developed over the years to have a more polished feel.
Heavy use of DAWs when recording.
Use of samples and synthesisers.
Artists
Eminem, Drake, Tupac.