

Pioneering women like MC Lyte, Lauryn Hill, and Missy Elliott broke down gender barriers. The artists on this list range from pioneers who created hip hop’s foundation to recent visionaries who continue expanding its future.Īny list of influential rappers must include giants like 2Pac, Jay-Z, Nas, The Notorious B.I.G., and Kanye West -Mcs who altered the artform’s landscape and inspired generations of fans and artists worldwide. While often controversial, the best hip hop artists have produced profound bodies of work on par with any genre. Originating in New York City, hip hop gave a powerful voice to urban youth while also spreading its sound and style around the world.įueled by DJs, MCs, breakdancing, and graffiti art, it embodied the energy and frustration of life in marginalized communities. Hip hop music and culture has tremendously influenced society since bursting onto the scene in the late 1970s. "New Jazz Station - Goodbye to the Smooth, Hello to the Classics". ^ How smooth jazz took over the '90s-Vox on YouTube.


2008 marked the death of the smooth jazz stations in both New York and Washington, DC" But the radio stations playing sax-and-synth dominated lite funk faded in the first decade of the 21st century. “Smooth jazz” was by far the dominant market force in jazz at the end of the century, and it sidetracked the artistic lives of some musicians who might have made more interesting music but for the draw of big paydays. ^ Jazz of the 00s - Jumping The Great Divide - Popmatters "the market for jazz was starting to get less rigid too.ĭigby Fairweather, before the start of UK jazz station theJazz, denounced the change to a smooth jazz format on defunct radio station 102.2 Jazz FM, stating that the owners GMG Radio were responsible for the "attempted rape and (fortunately abortive) re-definition of the music - is one that no true jazz lover within the boundaries of the M25 will ever find it possible to forget or forgive." See also Music reviewer George Graham argues that the "so-called 'smooth jazz' sound of people like Kenny G has none of the fire and creativity that marked the best of the fusion scene during its heyday in the 1970s". The smooth jazz genre experienced a backlash exemplified by critical complaints about the "bland" sound of top-selling saxophonist Kenny G, whose popularity peaked with his 1992 album Breathless. Smooth jazz grew in popularity in the 1980s as Anita Baker, Sade, Al Jarreau, Grover Washington Jr. and Bill Withers was released as one of the most popular smooth jazz songs " Just the Two of Us". The mid- to late-1970s included songs " Breezin'" as performed by another smooth jazz pioneer, guitarist George Benson in 1976, the instrumental composition " Feels So Good" by flugelhorn player Chuck Mangione, in 1978, " What You Won't Do for Love" by Bobby Caldwell along with his debut album was released the same year, jazz fusion group Spyro Gyra's instrumental " Morning Dance", released in 1979 and in 1981, a collaboration between Grover Washington Jr. The popularity of smooth jazz declined gradually in the early 2000s. ĭuring the mid-1970s in the United States it was known as "smooth radio", and was not termed "smooth jazz" until the 1980s. It avoids the improvisational "risk-taking" of jazz fusion, emphasizing melodic form and much of the music was initially "a combination of jazz with easy-listening pop music and lightweight R&B". Smooth jazz is a commercially oriented, crossover jazz which came to prominence in the 1980s, displacing the more venturesome jazz fusion from which it emerged. Smooth jazz is a genre of commercially oriented crossover jazz and easy listening music that became dominant in the mid-1970s to the early 1990s.
