Who ‘pioneered’ the transition from old school hip hop to melodic rap?

Submitted by trytoholdon t3_z8ts6b in Music

I was listening to a classic hip hop channel and I noticed that all of the songs were very simple — basically a guy rapping over a drum machine. There wasn’t much musical backing or real melody in the rapping.

You can hear this kind of thing still around in NWA’s music in the late 80s, and then by the early-to-mid 90s you have artists like Salt N Peppa and Tupac, who were both pretty melodic in their compositions.

I’m just curious who was the first artist to release truly “modern”, melodic rap music — which I think you could argue arrived in the mid 90s — that replaced the “old school” hip hop sound.

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ToxicAdamm t1_iydh87k wrote

In my mind, De La Soul was the forebearer of all the experimentation that happened in the early 90's. Early rap music had such a machismo aspect to it that even the women were expected to "act hard". Anything that veered out of that lane was called 'soft'. Pioneers like Public Enemy would experiment and layer depth of sound to their songs, but it still had that hard edge (aside from the Flav songs).

De La Soul showed that you could lose that edge, incorporate hooks, absurdism, musical flourishes and other experimentation into rap and still be seen as cool.

That next wave of college kid rappers that followed them were pushing rap in all different kinds of directions. Fusing jazz, pop hooks into the sound. They were dubbed the Native Tongues.

So, by the mid-90's you had artists like Warren G, Biggy, Tupac incorporating huge hooks in their music and no one even batted an eye or viewed it as 'soft'.

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iamsolow1 t1_iyfcvbv wrote

This is the way..!☝🏼 Nailed it..👌🏼

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drgoatlord t1_iyd9wsa wrote

I think the answer here is Bone thugs-n-harmony

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drunken-oracle t1_iydoxz1 wrote

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drgoatlord t1_iydx559 wrote

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jcheese27 t1_iydb9ry wrote

Dr Dre

Just listen to NWA then the chronic then 2001. And everything he produced in-between.

He is the reason for rap as we know it.

But basically he originated the G funk era from the OG gangster rap era.

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pucklermuskau t1_iyel393 wrote

Gotta give the nod to Gza, enter the 36 chambers.

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PORTOGAZI t1_iyexep5 wrote

While 36 chambers is perfect it’s like the absolute antitheses to OPs question. Theyre talking about modern pop-rap and Wu tang were far from it, despite being big commercially.

I’d credit Puff Daddy for ruining hip-hop starting with Mace — when 'mo money mo problems' came out I knew it was trouble. Sure enough with subsequent hits, everything edgy and exciting about hiphop just softened.

Then came g-unit, sure they rapped about gangtsa shit but it sounded like boy band music with rapping on top -- and aimed at 12 year olds. The fact that Mobb Deep ended up fucking with g-unit hurts to this day.

After that we gotta point the finger at T-pain for the auto-tuned vocals and then drake for the sound design beats and hang-sang rap.

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pucklermuskau t1_iyf1f68 wrote

it's a pretty damned melodic album, compared to old school 80s hip hop. not quite sure what you're on about...

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PORTOGAZI t1_iyf31ia wrote

ughh .. lots of typos .. incoherent post on my part...

the tldr: Having bits of melody on a record was hardly the strength of Liquid Swords or 36 chambers ... they were grimy NON-POP albums. Plenty of rappers had melodic songs earlier than GZA's solo stuff ... 93 till infinity? when OP says "melodic" rap they're likely talking about modern POP-RAP ...it all sounds like sound-design with digital reverbs, auto-tuned half-sang vocals (thx to Drake). This is a complete shift from boom-bap hiphop where the emcees were the focus. This is basically pop music now.

The shift from rap sounding underground and FOR hiphop-heads happened in the mid/late 90s when the commercial stuff started to sound closer to Backstreet Boys than its origin.
I'm all for progress but this felt more like selling out ... pandering to people who don't actually LIKE rap music and making it watered down for their soft ears. Punk music went through the same decline thanks to pop groups like Blink182 which introduced millions of suburban kids to an edgy genre -- free of any discomfort.

As Q tip says in Check the Rhyme -- "Rap is not pop, if you'll call it that you'll stop it." or something to that effect.

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pucklermuskau t1_iyf74ih wrote

i think you're reading a lot into OPs question. just go back and reread: he's asking about the shift from old-school hiphop, into the melodic 90s hiphop, its not focused on modern pop music at all.

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PORTOGAZI t1_iyf7d6h wrote

>truly “modern”, melodic rap music — which I think you could argue arrived in the late 90s — that replaced the “old school” hip hop sound.

Nope -- he says it right there homie.

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Zholict86t t1_iyd8itc wrote

I believe it was T-Pain that ushered in the latest sound and ruined it.

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CabinetOwn5418 t1_iydsc4j wrote

Beastie Boys: because of their origins as a punk band, they played instruments and looped a lot of their own stuff in addition to sampling. They were so far ahead of their time in the mid 80s

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SnowsInAustralia t1_iye95pr wrote

A lot of early rap had melodies though. Arguably the very first rap song ever, Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight," was very melodic. Furious Five's "The message," was melodic. Almost every song by Whodini is melodic.

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PORTOGAZI t1_iyewu4t wrote

????? The first rap song ever? You mean the first HIT RAP song. Rappers delight was made by an assembler boy-band of fake rappers from the burbs who stole their lines and styles from inner city rappers of the time. They blew up — made it raps first hit and got all the credit.

I forget most of the details but that’s the short. Can’t look at that song the same now.

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