What we currently consider to be popular music has experienced light years of evolution since it came into being roughly 75 years ago. Genres have bloomed, merged, and reinvented themselves to a dizzying degree. Parsing out sub-sub-sub genres and niche trends (see: Elevator Rap) can cause one to, at worst, approach an event horizon of music nerdiness or, at best, get lost in the sauce. Some popular musical styles can be flashes in the pan, while others can have a lasting influence after their moment in the sun peters out. One of the most impactful movements that doesn’t get acknowledged as much as it should is the fusion of hip-hop, funk, dance, and R&B that took over the late 1980s – new jack swing.

Janet Jackson’s record “Control” dropped like a bomb in 1986, dominating radio and cementing her as a superstar almost on the level of her older brother Michael. Produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, the record leaned heavily into funk-based synthesizers, drum machines, and breakbeats for its instrumentation, embracing the burgeoning sound of hip-hop. Musical wunderkind Teddy Riley was taking notes; he quickly became the producer most associated with the new style, which soon became the dominant sound in pop R&B. Newer artists, such as Paula Abdul and New Edition (plus its offshoots, Bobby Brown and Bel Biv Devoe) had new jack swing hits. Established stars like Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson pivoted away from Motown-inspired instrumental music to new jack swing, with Riley producing Michael’s new jack swing-heavy 1991 smash record “Dangerous.” New jack swing took over pop R&B for nearly a decade before petering out, and pop music would never be the same.

Its essence can be summed up as “R&B with a hip-hop feel.” While the heavy synthesizer and drum machine sound that defined its original iteration sound dated almost forty years later, almost all pop R&B that has been produced since carries on its legacy. The breakbeats at the heart of songs like Beyonce’s “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It),” Justin Timberlake’s “My Love,” Timbaland’s “Apologize,” Bruno Mars’ “24K Magic”, etc., all can be seen as updates of the new jack swing formula. The influence of hip-hop on modern R&B revolutionized the genre and changed both pop music and American culture. It could even be argued that new jack swing’s popularity in the late 80s and early 90s helped hip-hop become a mainstream genre and more accessible to listeners outside of its creative cultures. Its impact has been largely overlooked in the evolution of pop music.

The Beach Boys and the Beatles caused one of the greatest shifts in pop music when they transitioned from three-chord romps to more complexly arranged songs and expanded the horizons of instrumental pop/rock. Black Sabbath’s extremely heavy guitar-based rock signaled a new direction. DJ Kool Herc’s innovative use of a record turntable as an instrument ushered in a whole new sound. New jack swing deserves to be similarly lauded as one of pop music’s great leaps forward.

PHOTO: J Vettorino, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons