This page is to give you an insight into what makes a certain beat a certain style, although nothing is absolute in the Beat Game & Beat Makers regularly mix & match elementz of different Genres these are some basic fundamentals behind each Genre.
*CHOPPED & SCREWED - (or screwed and chopped), slowed and throwed, Houston music, H-Town music, screw music, screw, S.L.A.B.-ED, and dragged and chopped all refer to a technique of remixing hip hop music. This is accomplished by slowing the tempo and applying techniques such as skipping beats, record scratching, stop-time, and effecting portions of the music to make a "chopped-up" version of the original.
* DANCEHALL - A type of Jamaican popular music which developed in the late 70's, also known as "Bashment".
The style is characterized by raw and danceable music riddims, much faster than in reggae, sometimes with drum machines replacing acoustic sets.
* DIRTY SOUTH - The production style of southern rap can veer towards either a soul-based sound (Dungeon Family, Arrested Development) or a bouncier sound, Dirty South (No Limit, Cash Money). Where most East Coast rap operates at tempos around 90-120 beats per minute, and West Coast rap operates around 100-120 beats per minute, Southern rap runs rhythms at 140-160, upwards of 180 beats per minute, and then places each snare hit twice as far apart.This leaves more time to be filled between the kick (on the down beat of the first measure) and the snare (on the downbeat of the second). Sometimes this space is filled with quick trills of hi-hats, a style pioneered by Three 6 Mafia and Hit Man Sammy Sam's Big Oomp Records; other times, it is filled with additional snare patterns. Sampling, while still used, is less common in Southern hip-hop production.
Sub-Genres Include:
a.) Dirty South
b.) Miami Bass
c.) Jook Music
d.) Southern hardcore
e.) Spirituality
f.) New Orleans Project Rap
g.) Crunk
h.) Chopped and Screwed
i.) New Orleans Bounce
j.) Baton Rouge Jigg
k.) Snap Music
* EAST COAST - East coast hip hop tends to be the only form which still emphasizes the role of the DJ in production, still employing the original techniques of scratching, sampling, and blending (transforming). Production is centered on the frenetic use of a drum machine. The beats tend to have a slower pace (70-120 Beats Per Minute) and tend to be more sparse
* HARDCORE - Characterized by its minimalistic beats, gritty drum sounds that are often sampled from vinyl, occasional urban jazz and horn samples, and haunting string and piano melodies. Heavy beats, raw sampling and production, or any combination thereof. The term can refer to similar musical sensibilities that encompass several related genres, including Reality Rap, Death Rap, Horrorcore, Political Hip-Hop, Conscious Hip-Hop, Gangsta Rap, and Mafioso Rap.
* HIP-HOP - Hip hop production is the creation of hip hop music. Modern hip hop production utilizes samplers, sequencers, drum machines, synthesizers, turntables, and live instrumentation. The music is best classified as having a highly rhythmic, drum beat, whether by itself, dubbed over sampled music, or played along with live instruments.
The pipeline of hip hop production involves one or more of the following:
a.) A rhythmic, "funky", drum beat
b.) Sampled music
c.) A bassline
* HYPHY - Hyphy music is distinguished by gritty, pounding rhythms and in this sense can be associated with the Bay Area as crunk music is to the South; however, contrary to popular belief, the musical aspect of the Hyphy movement has very few similarities to crunk music as it is dictated by more up-tempo beats. An individual is said to "get hyphy", "get stupid", or "go dumb" when they act or dance in an overstated, fast paced, and ridiculous manner.
* MIDWEST - Midwest hip hop has very few constants. Its first dose of national popularity in the mid-90s was associated with fast-paced styles, of rappers such as Twista (Chicago), Rico Love (Milwaukee) and Bone Thugs-n-Harmony (Cleveland). However, subsequent acts which have since risen to national prominence such as Nelly, D12 and Kanye West share very few similarities. It is because these lack of constants between acts from different cities (and sometimes even between artists from the same city, that it can be extremely difficult to define a "typical" midwest sound. Another characteristic of Midwest hip hop is that beat tempos can range from 90 to about 180 beats per minute.
* NEW SCHOOL - Best described as having new & inventive sounds, styles, and techniques. The new school of hip hop is always ahead of it's time. Something that hasn't been done, before and stands out as an obviously different presentation. Although there are many, a few examples are: Audio Two - "Top Billin", Jeru The Damaja - "Come Clean", Pharoahe Monche - "Simon Says", Jay Z - "Do It Again", P. Diddy - "The Future", and Busta Rhymes - "Touch It".
* OLD SCHOOL - At the moment, old school hip hop ranges from the first official recorded record, in 1979, to 1998 as ten years is a fair span of time to consider something as "old school". For a new production to be considered old school, it would have to include one or more of the following:
a.) A replayed version of an old school disco or funk record or style
b.) A copy of a common or popular producer's style from an old school era
c.) The use of a popular production style from a certain era such as the slow funky tempo and heavy use of 808 kick drums of the Roland TR808, from the mid 80's, or the "muted" sample style from the early 90's.
* POP (Popular) - Pop music is an ample and imprecise category of modern music not defined by artistic considerations but by its potential audience or prospective market. Pop is music composed with deliberate intent to appeal to the majority of its contemporaries. In opposition to music that requires education or formation to appreciate, a defining characteristic of pop music is that anyone is able to enjoy it. Artistic concepts such as musical form and aesthetics are not a concern in the making of pop songs, the primary objectives being audience enjoyment and commercial success.
Initially the term was an abbreviation of, and synonymous to, popular music, but evolved circa 1954 to describe a specific musical category.The standard format of pop music is the song, customarily less than five minutes in duration, and with an instrumentation that can range from an orchestra to a lone singer.
Pop songs are generally marked by a heavy rhythmic element, a mainstream style and traditional structure. The most common variant is strophic in form and focuses on memorable melodies, catchy hooks and the appeal of the verse-chorus-verse arrangement, with the chorus sharply contrasting the verse melodically, rhythmically and harmonically.
* R&B - Rhythm and blues (also known as R&B or RnB) is a popular music genre combining jazz, gospel, and blues influences, first performed by African American artists. Writer/producer Robert Palmer defines "rhythm & blues as a catchall term referring to any music that was made by and for black Americans."An umbrella term invented for industry convenience that embraces all black music except classical music and religious music, unless a gospel song sells enough to break into the charts. Sub-genres include:
a.) Jazz
b.) Blues
c.) Jump Blues
d.) Soul
e.) Funk
f.) Neo-Soul
* REGGAETON - A form of urban music which became popular with Latin American (or Latino) youth during the early 1990s and spread over the course of 10 years to North American, European, Asian, and Australian audiences. Originating in Panama, Reggaeton blends Jamaican music influences of reggae and dancehall with those of Latin America, such as bomba, plena, merengue, and bachata as well as that of hip hop and Electronica. The most notably unique feature is a specific rhythm that characterizes reggaeton. A driving drum-machine track which was derived from and is referred to as “Dem Bow”. The name is a reference to the title of the Bobby Dixon-produced dancehall song, of the same title by Shabba Ranks that first popularized the beat in the early 90's.
The beat that can be heard throughout Reggaeton is an interplay of a steady kick drum and a syncopated snare. The kick drum emphasizes a 4/4 beat, while the snare comes in to create a "3+3+2" beat.
Although reggaeton has been influenced by hip-hop, it has also borrowed features from many other genres as well and is not considered to be Latin hip-hop.
* SONG - A complete recording which includes background music and a lead, whether it be the vocals of a singer or rapper, the structured kuts & scratches of a "turntabalist", or a lead instrument such as a horn, string, key, or wind instrument as with jazz music.
* SONG (REMIX) - Taking the lead part of an already recorded song and rearanging it and most often, putting it to different music.
* UNDERGROUND - "Undie" (to draw comparison to "indie" or independent) is an umbrella term for hip-hop and rap music outside the general commercial canon. Independent record labels are the major supplier of underground hip hop, but artists who are not signed to any label represent the independent scene just as much as their signed counterparts.
Underground production tend to be diverse, drawing on such musical styles as jazz, funk, electronica, and techno, as well as more traditional hip-hop for beats. The sound can also be more musically and lyrically diverse and have less repetition than mainstream rap.
* VIBE - Alternative/Jazzy hip hop. Musically the rhythms have been typically those of hip hop rather than jazz, over which are placed repetitive phrases of jazz instrumentation, such as: trumpet, double bass, etc. There has been little jazz improvisation in the genre.
* WEST COAST - West Coast hip hop, also known as West Coast rap or California hip hop, is a style of hip hop music that originated in California in the mid 80's. Usually uptempo, yet laid back/"easy-going" funk, party grooves which incorporate the feeling of "fun in the California sun".
"G-Funk" or "gangsta funk" (also known as "ghetto funk"), is a type of hip hop music that emerged from West Coast gangsta rap in the early 90's. G-funk (largely derived from slowing the tempo down of funk music) incorporates multi-layered and melodic synthesizers, slow hypnotic grooves, a deep bass, background female vocals, the extensive sampling of p-funk tunes, and a high portamento sine wave keyboard lead—a feature that became the genre’s notable trademark. Additionally, unlike other earlier rap acts that also utilized funk samples(such as EPMD or The Bomb Squad), G-funk often utilized fewer, unaltered samples per song. The sound has continued to utilized by a number of rap artists and producers including Kokane who in 2006 released three separate albums and Dr. Dre is planning to release his next Album Detox in 2008 which he promises will consist of the G-Funk sound that he pioneered.
"Mobb Music" is a style of West Coast rap music that began in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 80's. The basic instrumental style is derived primarily from funk music, with a heavy focus on synthesizers, ultra low bass lines and Roland TR-808 drums.
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