What is R&B?
The full name of R&B is Rhythm & Blues, which is generally translated as "Rhythm & Blues". In a broad sense, R&B can be regarded as "black pop music". It originated from black blues music and is the basis of today's western pop and rock. Billboard magazine once defined R&B as all black music, except for Jazz and Blues. It can be classified as R&B, which shows how broad the scope of R&B is. Hip Hop and Rap, which have become very popular in the black music circle in recent years, both originate from R&B, and at the same time retain many R&B elements.
The birth of rhythm and blues (R&B) can be traced back to the mid-1940s. Early R&B was called jump blues.
Jump Blues absorbs the horn-driven lineup performance of jazz and the rhythm of swing, and also combines the basic overlapping singing method (riff) and string performance of blues music (Blues) to become A new form of music. It can also be said that Jump Blues is a combination of Rhythm Jazz and Blues.
Although Jump Blues absorbed a large part of the characteristics of Blues, it was rhythm jazz that finally laid its basic structure and formed a new music style. But jump blues has a faster rhythm, rougher singing, and its use of instruments is also different from jazz and blues: the piano playing has a strong rhythm, and the most important SAX performance is sharper. Early Jump Blues was still black music: its singers and listeners were all black.
In Jump Blues, the singer is called "Shouter". Many famous Jump Blues Shouter are from Big-Band, such as Big Joe Turner, who is from Kansas City jazz bands. There were also some famous Shouters at that time, such as Wynonie Harris, Roy Brown, Roy Milton and Nappy Brown.
Louis Jordan had a very important influence on the history of Jump Blues. He often played songs with witty lyrics. Since these songs are particularly suitable for dance music, more and more white teenagers like them. Got this kind of music. Other black musicians such as Chuck Berry, Joe Liggins, Tiny Bradshaw, Amos Milburn, Camille Howard and other black musicians were also famous Jump Blues musicians at that time.
In the 1950s, thanks to the efforts of outstanding musicians, Jump Blues finally broke through racial boundaries and became a new music style accepted by the public. It was also in the 1950s that Jump Blues was renamed " "R&B" appeared on the Billboard chart.
When "R&B" emerged in the mid-1940s, it didn't even have a name. But as soon as the word appeared, it spread quickly and widely. Today, R&B has become synonymous with black pop music, although it is regarded more as a type of music that is different from rap, soul, and urban by special audiences and Mentioned by people in the recording industry. Early rock music was based on R&B, which was an extension of "country and western music" influenced by pop music. R&B is not only an important transitional music between blues and rock music, it is also the most important musical branch between blues and soul music.
Of course, blues is undoubtedly an important part of R&B, but the jazz element is equally important.
The earliest R&B artists came from the fields of "Big-Band" and "Swing-Jazz". Before World War II, when jazz was far more popular than it is today, it was music played for dancing, but there was usually a singer in the band. During World War II, many important jazz artists began to develop "Be Bop" and "Cool Jazz", a type of jazz with fewer dance elements. However, due to the influence and constraints of economic, military and other factors during the war, the number of "big bands" began to gradually decrease. But listeners, especially those in the rapidly growing African-American communities in big cities, still wanted to hear danceable music. So in order to adapt to the audience, musicians made "Boogie" music that was louder, used more electroacoustic instruments, and focused on "riff".
The R&B style that first became popular is usually referred to as "Jump Blues". It not only absorbs the swing rhythm and horn-based arrangement in jazz, but also absorbs the reply sections and harmonic structures commonly used in blues. Perhaps the most important pioneer of this style was Cab Calloway. On "Jump Blues," the singer's voice is harsher, the tempo is faster, and the instruments are played differently—the piano is played harder and the saxophone has a longer, sharper sound.
What is Hip-Hop?
I believe you are familiar with the term Hip-Hop! Yes, Hip-Hop is the most widely popular type of street dance now. If From a dance perspective, Hip-Hop can be divided into two categories: New school and Old school. How to distinguish these two types? We can distinguish them by age, action or music type.
In fact, Hip-Hop is the general name for all kinds of hip-hop
In fact, what we call Breaking or Old School is also a type of Hip-Hop. Old School dance bag Locking (lock dance). Poping (mechanical dance). Breaking (break dance). Wave (current). The famous group of this break dance style is Rock Steady Crew. It originated from the impromptu dance of American street dancers. action. Most of these street dancers are mainly black or Mexican. Perhaps it is the so-called "entertainment of casual people". Most of these popular street dances originate from Brooklyn, New York, USA (this area is full of residents). Poor blacks or Mexicans). These black and Mexican children hang out and dance in the streets all day long. They naturally form various factions and naturally develop different styles in the dances they dance. .
The evolution of Hip-Hop
The key to the evolution from Old School to New School. This can be traced back to the early Old School music, which has a very fast beat to match these Breaking movements, and then with the evolution of Hip-Hop music, people began to understand that Breaking was not suitable for these New School Hip-Hop music (because the so-called New School music is relatively slow, if in this kind of slow Hip-Hop music Movements such as windmills or footwork will make you feel that there is no explosive power at all, and you may even lose the sense of dance.) At this time, the dances of Old School and New School began to separate. It was around 1986 and the early New School dance. School's dance steps are very simple, such as the familiar "running man", which can be seen in Mc Hammer and Bobby Brown's videos... Perhaps we can call this kind of "explosive" Hip at that time -Hop dance to Funky Dacne.
The emergence of New School Hip-Hop
However, from today’s perspective, these hip-hop dances that were popular during the Mc Hammer and Bobby Brown era have gradually become Old School. Because. In early 1992, there was a black dance group called Mop Top (Elite Force) (composed of Henry Link. Loose Joint. Buddha Stretch). They developed a new style of Hip-Hop. It was not like Mc Hammer. It's not like the big, explosive, wide-range movements of the Bobby Brown era, nor the gymnastics-like movements on the ground in break dancing. Its unique style lies in its emphasis on body coordination (what we call rhythm). He attaches great importance to The rhythm of the upper body of the body and a lot of hand movements have been added. It is no longer like those old-style Hip-Hop that focuses on large-scale movements and foot movements. Maybe Henry was just an unknown street dancer at the beginning, but when When Michael Jackson's "Remember the Time" appeared on MTV, everyone saw the so-called "single dance" for the first time. This new style of dance appeared on the world's pop music king's MTV and immediately set off a wave of excitement. The trend. We dare not say what made Mr. Henry famous. But the dance in "Remember the Time" is his masterpiece. Later in Mariah Carey's "Dreamlover" song MTV, we saw a prairie. There is a group of black men wearing only pants dancing a strange style of dance. These dances are mixed with Hip-Hop, Locking (locking dance), Poping (machine dance), Wave (electricity) and other things, but combined with such things as Dreamlover R&B-style Hip-Hop music. It was hard for us to believe what we saw. At the time, it was difficult for us to determine what kind of dance it was. However, this was a very important step in the development history of New School Hip-Hop. Festival, he is the origin and "culprit" of the popularity of New School all over the world.
The mature stage of New School Hip-Hop
The so-called New School Hip-Hop. The definition is to connect various types of dances together with a light, slow and slow dance. It is expressed in hip-hop or R&B. (This is also a form in the early days of New School.) We saw the black dance group led by Henry in this song Dreamlover, making incomprehensible dance moves. They used the fast-paced Locking (locking dance) to express it with a new feeling in the slow dance rhythm of R&B. They no longer have to do this kind of wrist-flicking movements like nunchucks. To express Locking (locking dance), they simplified many locking (locking dance) movements. They also used standard Hip-Hop left and right rhythms to express poping (machine dance) and locking (locking dance), and also used them in the dance from time to time. Adding the Wave (current) thing. To put it simply, it is to interpret these old dance steps with a new feeling. Soon, it will be used in the new single "Jingle Ding Dang" released by the famous Japanese hip-hop group and singer Zoo. This New School Hip-Hop represents the dance in MTV. If you don't pay attention...this new style of hip-hop has become popular all over the world.
Later, Henry gradually worked as a choreographer for Mariah Carey’s songs Fantasy and Honey, and then for songs by the previously popular and temporarily disbanded female Hip-Hop group TLC. Creep and the movie MIB on MTV. We slowly discovered that this kind of Hip-Hop has begun to mature. (Of course, you can also see traces of Henry in these MTVs.) The most famous one in the past period was TLC's Waterfall. Supporting MTV, the "magic shoulder shake" action in MTV brought New School Hip-Hop into another new stage.
Today’s New School Hip-Hop Dance
I have to admire the Japanese people’s thinking. When this New School Hip-Hop became popular in Japan, the Japanese developed their own Another dance style, which is also something that is difficult for everyone to understand. These Japanese Hip-Hop dancers began to use Old School music to dance New School Hip-Hop. The origin of New School is to use new music The style expresses the old dance, but now it turns to the old music style to interpret the new dance. It is really a strange thing.
In terms of movements, the recent New School has changed more, especially when adding Wave (current) things, it becomes more irregular. From the perspective of the audience, it seems that these dances The dancers of the New School are all "polio" patients, because their bodies are more distorted and there is less and less regularity in dance.
Hip-Hop also has regional styles
We can divide it into New York Style and Los Angeles Style. Things from these two regions present polarized styles. For example, N.Y Style is We usually see body distortions and various hip-hop styles. Perhaps New York is Henry’s home base, so naturally the Hip-Hop style in this area is also more inclined to Henry’s style. The local dance plus The strange twists of the body and the combination of Locking (lock dance), Poping (machine dance) and Wave (current), it is not difficult for us to imagine that it is a black casual style. And L.A STYLE’s Hip-Hop, It inherits and continues the hip-hop that was popular during the era of Mc Hammer and Bobby Brown. The changes in big movements and steps also retain its explosive characteristics. It just adds many new tricks to the changes in movements. Also because of Hip-Hop They are divided into two major factions, so many dancers or magazines and media no longer refer to them collectively as Hip-Hop Dance. They call N.Y Style Hip-Hop New School. And they call L.A Style Hip-Hop Street Dance.
What is New School Hip-Hop?
In short, New School Hip-Hop includes various types of hip-hop, including Locking (lock dance). Poping (machine (Dance), Wave (current) and the rhythms of Mc Hammer and Bobby Brown. It’s just that you can’t see the shadow of Breaking (Break Dance) in New School Hip-Hop. As mentioned earlier, it combines various Hip-hop dance, perhaps we can say it is a comprehensive dance. However, now the scope of New School is wider, not only adding many kinds of dances, such as Poping, Boogie (Boogie), but also the range of materials is wider. ! Some people think that New School’s movements are much simpler than the windmills of the 1990s. If you compare them with your head turned, New School’s movements also require skills. It is similar to the footwork in break dancing. Although it is easy to Sex, but it also contains a lot of skills. The principle is the same. However, Old School is compared with New School? We can't really make a distinction or comparison. And I don't know when a newer style of hip-hop will appear. ....The New School we are popular now may become history again.
What is rock music
Since the 1950s, swing music has gradually declined, and bands composed of a few people have become popular again. The instruments they usually use include piano, saxophone, trumpet, clarinet, trombone, and dance drums. Since the birth of electronic keyboards and electric guitars, they have been commonly used to replace some of the original musical instruments. At this time, rock music began to have a close relationship with jazz and swing music.
The difference is that jazz and swing music are mostly based on performance, but only a few of them include singing; while rock music is based on singing, and the accompaniment instruments only play a supporting role.
Jazz and swing were both produced in the United States, while rock music emerged almost simultaneously in the United States and Britain.
Around 1955, in the city of Liverpool, England, there first appeared a rock and roll singing group composed of four young people, named "Crickets", and achieved some success. Soon, John Leigh Four young men, including Nong (guitarist and singer), Paul McCartney (keyboardist), George Harrison (guitar and keyboardist) and Richard Stark (drummer), also established a pop music group. The song singing group, for the "Crickets" singing group, they jokingly named their group "Beatles". The official name of the "Beatles" singing group is Beatles Band in English, and the Chinese transliteration is "The Beatles". It's interesting. The word "Beatles" is just right, because it vividly summarizes their decadent image of long hair, jeans, and casual clothes. The original meaning of the word Beat is to beat or beat. It illustrates their rock singing style. "The Beatles" later became a special term for this type of fashionable young people. But the "Beatles" band has influenced the entire society.
"The Beatles" performance style is aggressive and bohemian. Most of the songs sung are self-composed. They have a basic principle: songs should be produced collectively, should reflect people's thoughts, and should ruthlessly expose and criticize the bad phenomena of society. Each song should have something new and should be ahead of the audience, even if they don't understand it yet. Because of these purposes, they sing out the voices of people, especially young people. In addition, the performance techniques are novel, such as electroacoustic amplification, kneeling, leaning up, standing in the golden rooster position for a long time, or moving the microphone stand while singing and other explosive gestures to assist the singing, so it is very popular among young people. welcome. In the 1960s, the Beatles performed in the United States and set off "Lennon Mania" there.
John Lennon was also a peaceful fighter. He strongly opposed unjust wars and held many sit-ins and demonstrations for peace. For this reason, Queen Elizabeth II knighted him and awarded the Beatles all the Order of the British Empire. After 1967, the Beatles focused mainly on recording records and filming television. In 1969, Lennon married Japanese musician Yoko Ono. After getting married, they settled in the United States, and the Beatles immigrated to the United States. In the early 1970s, due to differences of opinion, the four of them decided to disband the band and go their separate ways. Unfortunately, when Lennon returned to the UK in 1980, he was shot and killed by a crazy admirer named Chapman while walking on the street one day. That year, he was only forty years old. After the news of Lennon's death, people were very sad. On the day of the burial, there were as many as one million and hundreds of thousands of mourners. He truly became the "spiritual king" in people's minds, better than the real king.
The Beatles' rock style deeply influenced the development of world pop music at that time. To this day, although there are many singers and wonderful pop bands and rock and roll groups, no one has more influence on society than them.
Almost at the same time that Lennon formed the Beatles, a new rock star also emerged in the United States. He is Presley, nicknamed "Elvis" and respected as the "King of American Rock and Roll".
Elvis Presley (Elvis, 1935-1977) was born in a working-class family in Tupelo, Mississippi. He loved singing since he was a child. He participated in singing competitions many times during his childhood and won many awards. Award winning. In 1958, he served in the military and went to Germany. After retiring in 1960, he was busy performing, making movies and recording records. In 1967, his album "Golden Hymns" won the "Grammy Award". In 1973, he held a solo concert in Honolulu and broadcast the performance live to the world via satellite, which became an unprecedented initiative in the pop music industry. Presley's record sales set a world record for record sales, with more than one billion records according to statistics. He starred in as many as thirty-four films, and Elvis Presley became an idol among young people in the West. Because he often ended up having to take sleeping pills to fall asleep. Gradually, he developed bad habits of drinking and taking drugs. He died of a heart attack on August 16, 1977.
Although "Elvis" has passed away for many years, people have never forgotten him. To this day, many people still dress up like him: with big sideburns, sunglasses, the clothes he often wore during his lifetime, and sing his songs to participate in competitions. Some people even made up some alarmist anecdotes, saying that he was not dead, but just retired. This shows his influence. At the same time as Presley and after his death, some famous rock stars appeared in the American, British and European pop music circles, such as Roy Orbison (1936-1988), Bob Dylan (Bob Dylan, 1941~), etc., are among the best. Some have even won the "Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performance", and rock music has also formed many genres. Such as Rock & Roll, heavy metal (Hard Rock), slow rock (Slow Rock), middle of the road rock (Middle of the road Rock), swing rock (Punk Rock), jazz rock (Jazz) Rock), Latin Rock, etc. Their nature and content are different. Some lyrics focus on people's lives and oppose some bad and strange phenomena in reality; some lyrics are very literary and poetic; some use music with rhymed recitations; Some use the combination of sound and light to create confusing and illusory effects on the stage, which is really diverse. They were both opposed to preserving tradition in music. The Rolling Stones put forward the slogan "Roll over Beetheen".