Hip-Hop R&B
tagStarted 1988Peak 1990-1994Last big hit 1995
Located in 1 route
Where new jack's R&B singing meets explicit hip-hop: rapped verses traded with sung hooks, sampled breakbeats, scratching and crew interplay over swung drums. The seam between MC and vocalist is the whole point — looped funk, hard kicks and call-and-response between a rapper and a soul hook, built for the same clubs that played rap.
History
Producers folded rap directly into R&B records — Wreckx-n-Effect and Teddy Riley's swing, Color Me Badd's sung-rap blend, and rap acts adding R&B hooks. The format normalized the rap-verse/sung-chorus structure that would define late-90s R&B, growing from new jack's habit of dropping a guest MC onto a swingbeat groove.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_jack_swing
- https://www.shazam.com/song/1467864605/i-wanna-sex-you-up-smoothed-out-long-version
- https://www.allmusic.com/style/new-jack-swing-ma0000012042