Daddy Kev at HEADS KNOW Paragon on Jan 7, 2023. Captured by Dillon Eldin
Content warning: This is a 4 am stream of consciousness that I hope makes sense when I wake up and see it was published lol
As a music writer, I understand how important genres can be for music history. A sound can be traced back to a place, a person or an event, and all of that is integral to how we connect with it today. Last week, I was DJing an event and the bartender told me, “You’re doing great, but you just don’t have hip-hop.” Sure, I wasn’t playing straight-up rap songs, but my set was filled with Jersey club, baile funk and footwork—all genres that come from hip hop.
Coming from a background in EDM blogging, one thing that always bothered me was the divide between the two cultures. A few years ago, my curiosity led me to investigate sample-snitching and how—despite both electronic music and hip hop being sample-driven—the rules didn’t apply to both genres the same way. As I grew in my journalism career, I made it a point to interview artists who offered the connection between the two. Whether it was Hudson Mohawke retelling the origins of electronic trap, DJ Premier reliving '80s house music parties or DJ Shadow reminiscing about discovering his first sample source, the common sentiment shared between them was that electronic music and hip hop go hand-in-hand.
We can notice now that a shift is happening. Black Coffee executive produced Drake’s 2022 Honestly, Nevermind, Beyonce booked real club DJs to open for the “Renaissance” tour and Jersey’s DJ Smallz 732 produced one of Nicki Minaj’s biggest tracks in recent years. The progress isn’t perfect (I was one of the many to say that Drake album was disappointing) nor is it linear, but the mainstream learning that hip hop and electronic music don’t have to be so separated has to be a good thing overall.
I’m not saying anything groundbreaking. But as a newish music writer who constantly feels like I need to choose between the two to advance my career, I’d love for us to continue to see the two genres blend and work together in a way that honors both of their histories. I guess I’m writing about this now because I hope that my work in journalism and with HEADS KNOW can contribute to that, too.
FURTHER READING/LISTENING:
You made an excellent point! I think genre blending has always been present in the hip hop world but nowadays, the chart topping artists are doing it. For some of their audience members, they are doing something "new" from a musical standpoint but in reality they are pulling from a scene that has been around for years. Admittedly, just from reading the title of this piece originally, I thought you were going to speak on something like FL Studio since it's electronic software used to make beats for rap lol
I suspect that the likes of Dough Wimbish, Rajeev Leblanc and Skip McDonald might have a different opinion. Larry Smith too..