Crossing Genres

After people find out that I make music, I can predict with auto-tune- accuracy the next question that will be posed. It is invariably: "What kind of music do you like to listen to?"

Throughout my early years of schooling in the 90s, my stock answer was that "I like to listen to pretty much everything. Everything except for rap!" Upon utterance of the word rap, I remember curling my mouth in disgust. Rap/hip-hop culture, still largely underground, was portrayed a lot differently back then. When I thought of rap, I imagined senseless violence and death wish- drug usage. And when I heard this music, the monotonous vibes bared no redeeming qualities to me and the lyrics made me cringe. 

Today, I have a drastically different perspective on hip-hop. The modern hip-hop lifestyle has been extremely glamorized by the mass media, a life of exorbitant amounts of money, Bentley's, and last, but not least, women. Drake's spells it for you in "Successful". Surfacing from underground in a more positive light, hip-hop has become a regular element of today's mainstream music. It has a wider audience then ever before--and that includes me. Appropriately enough, what initially hooked me on this music was the hooks (the chorus-like parts), but I soon began to appreciate the artists' unique flows (where they lay with reference to the beat), the intense rhythmic quality to the music, and the “rags to riches” stories behind a lot of the defining artists. 

I realize hip-hop specifically isn’t the new popular music though. The popular music of today is something far more complex, often defying genre-specificity. This is no accident.

The popular music produced today is calculated to please. Labels need to be confident in a track's success because production is not cheap. The big record company’s are always trying to market to an even larger audience. One way of doing this is to cross genres, something I have noticed happening more and more.

For example, have a listen to the chart topping "Break Your Heart" by Taio Cruz featuring two hearty raps by Ludacris. Besides its undeniable catchiness and shadenfreudisticly empowering lyrics, this international ear-pleaser has another reason for its success. It combines elements from many genres. The hip-hop influence is evidenced by the hard hitting back-beat, and incorporation of two rap sections. There is a definite pop influence in the vocal style and the standard pop form exhibited. Also infused heavily in this track are many aspects of techno music: synthesizers are used throughout as melodic elements as well as chordal pads. Whether you are into hip-hop, classic pop, or techno, this song was recorded for you. Kevin Rudolph’s “I Made It” is a fusion of hip-hop, techno, and rock(surprisingly enough). Check it out for yourself and you will have no trouble identifying the distinct influences.

One of the effects of this trend in genre-infusions is softly introducing listeners to a variety of styles. Another positive effect of such tracks is the collaboration of artists from different genres, such as rap in my case. I believe this sharing of musical perspectives is an incredibly positive influence on the entire musical community.

Now when people ask me what kind of music I listen to, I cooly reply, “everything but death metal.” I don’t see my tastes changing on this one though...