Modern-day vocalists like SZA, Summer Walker and Ari Lennox regularly collaborate with rappers and their production often retools tunes from the past. Today, the marriage of the two genres is still thriving. Throughout the remainder of the 90s, we saw mega artists like Mariah Carey, Usher, Aaliyah, Brandy and many others fully embrace hip hop. After her debut, the barrier between the two genres continued to break down, as R&B artists – both male and female – tapped rappers for features and also relied on samples to back their music. Although Mary wasn’t the first artist to fuse hip hop and R&B, she became the queen because she perfected it in a way that the industry would later follow. In addition to incorporating hip hop elements directly into the production, rappers such as Heavy D, Erick Sermon and Busta Rhymes popped up on the album’s “Leave a Message” opener and “Intro Talk” skits, further proving that in Mary’s world, rap & R&B go together like white on rice. And although “Sweet Thing” was a cover of Rufus and Chaka Khan’s popular 1975 song, Morales and Rooney cunningly kept the theme going by incorporating a drum sample of Barry White’s 1973 hit “I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little More Baby.” Standout songs like “Love No Limit,” “Slow Down” and the K-Ci-assisted “I Don’t Want to Do Anything” strayed away from the format but ensured Mary lived up to the latter half of her Queen of Hip Hop Soul moniker. Numerous other tracks on the album - like the Mary signature “Real Love” and the album cut “Changes I’ve Been Going Through” - followed this same formula. For example, the album’s first single, “You Remind Me,” was primarily built off a coarse drum sample from Biz Markie’s 1988 track “Biz Dance Part 1.” That base was then juxtaposed by Hall’s bright instrumentation and then chef’s kissed by Mary’s smooth vocals. The forces behind 411 took the style even further and made New Jack more simplified, gritty and relaxed. An edgier take on the fusion already started bubbling with the release of Jodeci’s 1991 “Come and Talk to Me” remix, which Diddy produced. While New Jack already incorporated hip hop-inspired drum breaks and samples, the style was generally polished and upbeat. From there, Diddy and other producers - including Mark Morales, Dave Hall, Mark “Cory” Rooney and Tony Dofat, among many others - got to work on creating Mary’s sound. Thus, Mary became Uptown’s first female signee, and Harrell appointed intern-turned-A&R Puffy Combs (now known as Diddy) to executive produce her debut. Sure!, and Jodeci, but they were missing a first lady. The label was progressively building a roster of impressive acts like Heavy D, Al B. Uptown, which was founded by Bronx music exec Andre Harrell, was already the home of Riley’s group Guy. Even Michael Jackson, the biggest artist in the world at the time, recruited Riley to incorporate the New Jack sound into his eighth studio album, Dangerous.Īt the height of the movement, Mary was signed to the recently launched Uptown Records in 1989. As the world became increasingly familiar with the new sound, tracks like Keith Sweat’s “I Want Her,” Bobby Brown’s “Don’t Be Cruel” and Johnny Kemp’s “Just Got Paid” started to heat up on Billboard. Then, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Teddy Riley spearheaded the New Jack Swing movement, which laced R&B tracks with hip hop-influenced drum sequences, sampled beats and melodies. Funk and soul jams were often sampled and repurposed for rap tunes since its early beginnings, but R&B rarely delved into hip hop’s territory. native has since evolved into a global icon and has experimented with an array of genres across the board, her debut changed R&B forever and its influence is still evident today.īefore Mary prompted the marriage of hip hop and R&B, the two genres first had to meet. Blige released her debut album What’s the 411? – an innovative hybrid of rap and R&B – she was deemed the “Queen of Hip Hop Soul.” Although the Yonkers, N.Y.
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