2. History Of Urban Contemporary Music
Urban contemporary music was a genre defined by New York’s DJ Frankie
Crocker in the mid-1970s. Urban contemporary music is made up from many
genres such hip hop, R&B, grime, electronic dance music such as dubstep, UK
garage and drum and bass. Caribbean music such as reggae and dancehall is
also hugely influential form of urban contemporary music. The Urban
contemporary music genres was developed through the characteristics of
genres such as R&B and soul. Frankie Crocker, an exciting DJ who strived to
get urban music on the map in america during the 1970’s, was appointed as
program director of the newly created WBLS in 1974, he created an eclectic
music mix of R&B and disco redefining the R&B format as urban
contemporary. The station was an instant success, as the stations took no
time at all in becoming the most listened-to radio station in America.
Now forms of Urban contemporary music are seen across the world. Virtually
all urban contemporary formatted radio stations are located in the major
cities across the world.
3. Grime
Grime is a genre of music that has emerged in England in the late 90’s to early 2000’s. It is a form
of urban contemporary music that has recently exploded onto the music scene in recent years.
Grime is England's answer to underground rap in America. Grime emerged from London with its
origins coming from UK pirate radio stations such as Rinse FM. It is primarily a development of UK
garage, drum and bass and dancehall. Grime takes music instrumentals from all types of urban
contemporary music and blends them together creating beats and tunes for grime artists to rap
over.
As with many similar scenes around the world, grime has encountered some criticism, especially
from government officials such as Kim Howells who made comments that some grime supporters
claimed to find "deeply racist", referring to popular artists and crews as "boasting macho idiot
rappers". Grime was struggling to make big commercial numbers until grime artists such as
“Dizzee Rascal”, “Wiley”, “Kano” and “Lethal Bizzle” began to create grime tracks that grabbed
the attention of thousnads of people. These artists were the first to bring the genre to
mainstream media attention in 2003–2004, with their albums ‘Boy in da Corner’, ‘Treddin on Thin
Ice’, ‘Home Sweet Home’ and ‘Against All Oddz’ respectively. “Dizzee Rascal” garnered
widespread critical acclaim and commercial success with ‘Boy in da Corner’ winning the 2003
Mercury Music Prize. From here on in Grime has grown from strength to strength with radio
stations such as BBC Radio 1 even having shows that a completely devoted to grime.
4. CHARTS
This is the current top 10 in the UK. Pop is
arguably the biggest type of genre and it
definitely makes up most of this top ten at
the moment. However urban contemporary
music is being represented by artists such as
“G-EAZY”, “Weekend” and particularly
“Wstrn”. “IN2” is a track performed by
them, that corrently sits 9th in the charts,
that truely defines the urban contemporary
music genre as it includes nearly all
elements of which makes it up. The track
combines genres such as R&B, Hip hop and
grime and creates a track that combines all
three.
