Hip Hop-"You ain't gotta hold your tongue.”

The roots of hip hop are found in African-American music and ultimately African music. The griots of West Africa are a group of traveling singers and poets who are part of an oral tradition dating back hundreds of years. Their vocal style is similar to that of rappers. The African-American traditions of signifyin', the dozens, and jazz poetry are all descended from the griots. In addition, musical 'comedy' acts such as Rudy Ray Moore and Blowfly are considered by some to be the forefathers of rap.
Within New York City, griot-like performances of poetry and music by artists such as The Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron and Jalal Mansur Nuriddin had a significant impact on the post-civil rights era culture of the 1960s and 1970s.
Hip hop arose during the 1970s when block parties became increasingly popular in New York City, especially in the Bronx, where African-American, Jamaican and Latino influences combined. Block parties incorporated DJs who played popular genres of music, especially funk and soul music. DJs, realizing its positive reception, began isolating the percussion breaks of popular songs. This technique was then common in Jamaican dub music and had spread to New York City via the substantial Jamaican immigrant community. A major proponent of the technique was the 'godfather' of hip hop, the Jamaican-born DJ Kool Herc, who emigrated to the United States from Jamaica in 1967. Dub music had become popular in Jamaica due to the influence of American sailors and rhythm & blues. Large sound systems were set up to accommodate poor Jamaicans who couldn't afford to buy records and dub developed at the sound systems. Because the New York audience did not particularly like dub or reggae, Herc quickly switched to using funk, soul and disco records. Because the percussive breaks were generally short, Herc and other DJs began extending them using an audio mixer and two records.
Turntablist techniques, such as beat mixing/matching, scratching and beat juggling eventually developed along with the breaks, creating a base that could be rapped over. These same techniques contributed to the popularization of remixes. Such looping, sampling and remixing of another's music, sometimes without the original artist's knowledge or consent, can be seen as an evolution of Jamaican dub music, and would become a hallmark of the hip hop style.

Drum and Bass-"broken" beats began to be known as "jungle"

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a growing nightclub culture gave birth to a new electronic music style called Rave music, which combined regular beats alongside broken, syncopated beats, strong basslines and a faster tempo than that of house music. By 1991, musical tracks made up of only "broken" beats began to be known as "jungle", branching off into a separate musical genre (circa 1991-1992) popular at raves and on pirate radio in urban Britain.
These tracks often combined ragga vocal tracks with broken beats and bass lines. By 1994 jungle began to gain mainstream popularity and fans of the music (known as junglists) became a recognizable part of British youth subculture. The sound took on a very urban, raggamuffin sound, incorporating dancehall ragga-style MC chants, dub basslines, but also increasingly complex, high tempo rapid fire breakbeat percussion. At this time jungle began to be associated with criminals and criminal activity and perhaps as a reaction or perhaps
As the independently of this, producers began to move away from the ragga style and create what they labeled drum and bass. There is no clear point at which jungle became drum and bass, though most jungle producers continue to produce what they call drum and bass.music style became more polished and sophisticated, it began to shift from pirate to commercial radio and gain widespread acceptance (circa 1995-1997). It also began to split into recognizable subgenres such as jump-up and Neuro. As a lighter sound of drum and bass began to win over the musical mainstream, many producers continued to work on the other end of the spectrum. This resulted in a series of releases offering a dark, technical sound which drew more influence from techno music and the soundscapes of science fiction and anime films, this subgenre became known as techstep (circa 1997-1998).
Towards the turn of the millennium, the UK garage sound emerged and quickly eclipsed drum and bass in popularity. Drawing a key part of its inspiration from drum and bass, it was commonly believed that UK garage was a replacement of the genre and statements were made to the effect that "drum and bass is dead". However, consistent development of the genre proved otherwise. The appearance of liquid funk and other subgenres brought a wave of new artists incorporating new ideas and techniques, supporting continual evolution of the genre. Drum and bass is perhaps not well-known as a genre, but makes frequent, unrecognized appearances in the mainstream such as in television commercials, as well as being a major influence for other musical styles and some of its artists (notably Goldie).

Pop-“I think pop music has done more for oral intercourse than anything else that ever happened, and vice versa.”

Throughout its development, pop music has absorbed influences from most other genres of popular music. Early pop music drew on the sentimental ballad for its form, gained its use of vocal harmonies from gospel and soul music, instrumentation from jazz and rock music, orchestration from classical music, tempo from dance music, backing from electronic music and has recently appropriated spoken passages from rap.
It has also made use of technological innovation. In the 1940s improved microphone design allowed a more intimate singing styleand ten or twenty years later inexpensive and more durable 45 r.p.m. records for singles "revolutionized the manner in which pop has been disseminated" and helped to move pop music to ‘a record/radio/film star system’. Another technological change was the widespread availability of television in the 1950s; with televised performances, "[p]op stars had to have a visual presence". In the 1960s, the introduction of inexpensive, portable transistor radios meant that teenagers could listen to music outside of the home. Multi-track recording (from the 1960s); and digital sampling (from the 1980s) have also been utilized as methods for the creation and elaboration of pop music. By the early 1980s, the promotion of pop music had been greatly affected by the rise of Music Television channels like MTV, which "favoured those artists such as Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Prince who had a strong visual appeal".
Pop music has been dominated by the American and (from the mid-1960s) British music industries, whose influence has made pop music something of an international monoculture, but most regions and countries have their own form of pop music, sometimes producing local versions of wider trends, and lending them local characteristics.
Some of these trends (for example Europop) have had a significant impact of the development of the genre.
According to Grove Music Online, "Western-derived pop styles, whether coexisting with or marginalizing distinctively local genres, have spread throughout the world and have come to constitute stylistic common denominators in global commercial music cultures".Some non-Western countries, such as Japan, have developed a thriving pop music industry, most of which is devoted to Western-style pop, has for several years has produced a greater quantity of music of everywhere except the USA.The spread of Western-style pop music has been interpreted variously as representing processes of Americanization, homogenization, modernization, creative appropriation, cultural imperialism, and/or a more general process of globalization.

Rock-“If it's illegal to rock and roll, throw my ass in jail!” Kurt Cobain

The origins of rock and roll have been fiercely debated by commentators and historians of music. There is general agreement that it arose in the southern United States of America - the region which would produce most of the major early rock and roll acts - through the meeting of the different musical traditions which had developed from transatlantic African slavery and largely European immigration in that region. 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 meant that black and white residents were living in close proximity in larger numbers than ever before, and as a result heard each other's music and even began to emulate each other's fashions. Radio stations that made white and black forms of music available to their views of which of these forms were most important and the degree to which the new music was a re-branding of African American rhythm and blues for a white market, or a new hybrid of black and white forms.
In the 1930s jazz, and particularly swing, both in urban based dance bands and blues-influenced country swing, was among the first music to present African American sounds for a predominately white audience. The 1940s saw the increased use of blaring horns (including saxophones), shouted lyrics and boogie woogie beats in jazz based music. During and immediately other groups, the development and spread of the gramophone record, and musical styles such as jazz and swing which were taken up by both black and white musicians, aided this process of "cultural collision".
The immediate roots of rock and roll lay in the so-called "race music" and hillbilly music (later called rhythm and blues and country and western) of the 1940s and 1950s.Particularly significant influences were jazz, blues, boogie woogie, country, folk and gospel music. Commentators differ in after World War II, with shortages of fuel and limitations on audiences and available personnel, large jazz bands were less economical and tended to be replaced by smaller combos, using guitars, bass and drums. In the same period, particularly on the West Coast and in the Midwest, the development of jump blues, with its guitar riffs, prominent beats and shouted lyrics, prefigured many later developments.Similarly, country boogie and Chicago electric blues supplied many of the elements that would be seen as characteristic of rock and roll.
Rock and roll arrived at time of considerable technological change, soon after the development of the electric guitar, amplifier and microphone, and the 45 rpm record.There were also changes in the record industry, with the rise of independent labels like Atlantic, Sun and Chess servicing niche audiences and a similar rise of radio stations that played their music.It was the realization that relatively affluent white teenagers were listening to this music that led to the development of what was to be defined as rock and roll as a distinct genre.

Jazz-"Man, if you gotta ask you'll never know" - Louis Armstrong

Jazz - an American art form and an international phenomenon! Jazz is not the result of choosing a tune, but an ideal that is created first in the mind, inspired by ones passion and willed next in playing music. Jazz music is a language, sometimes intimate, often boisterous, but always layered with experience and life profoundly lived. Jazz is not found in websites or books or even written down in sheet music. It is in the act of creating the form itself, that we truly find Jazz .
An academic definition of Jazz would be: A genre of American music that originated in New Orleans circa 1900 characterized by strong, prominent meter, improvisation, distinctive tone colors & performance techniques, and dotted or syncopated rhythmic patterns. But Jazz is so much more than that. Most attempts to define Jazz music have been from points of view outside that of Jazz.
Art in general hosts an invitation for the viewer or listener to invest a personal attentiveness. Unlike other mediums, the nature of music is tipped toward the emotional rather than intellectual.

It is this personal connection with music and all art that enables the patron to actually experience what is being communicated, rather than merely understanding the information. While all forms of music share this dynamic, Jazz, with its unique characteristic of collective improvisation, exemplifies it.Most genres of music involve the listener into the realm of the completed work as it was scored. Jazz draws the onlooker to a deeper
league, that of a partnership so to
speak, of being along when each new phrase is created, when each inspired motive is often the interactive result of audience involvement.
Jazz music's dynamic is its "newness" which can be attributed to the defining component - improvisation.
While Classical music may strive to conform the musical tones to orchestral sonorities, Jazz music thrives on instrumental diversities; the player's individual "sound" becoming the desired proficiency.
This is where the passion is, a kind found no where else.
Jazz is the most significant form of musical expression in American culture and outstanding contribution to the art of music. From obscure origins in New Orleans over a century ago, the music and the word we use for it are now familiar the world over. Like the self-motivating, energetic solos that distinguish the genre, Jazz continues to evolve and seek new levels of artistic expression. In slightly over one hundred years, this evolution has given birth to approximately two dozen distinct Jazz styles. Jazz music draws from life experience and human emotion as the inspiration of the creative force, and through this discourse is chronicled the story of its people. Jazz musicians and those that follow the genre closely, can indeed be thought of as an artistic community complete with its leaders, spokesmen, innovators, aficionados, members and fans.

"The real power of Jazz is that a group of people can come together and create improvised artand negotiate their agendas... and that negotiation is the art" - Wynton Marsalis from 'Jazz, a film by Ken Burns.'