The Motown Hip Hop






by Kelly J. Jeffrey


Growing up in the City of Detroit during the early sixties was a memorable era for music. It was a period of time whereby the unique sounding records of Motown were being played and heard throughout the streets, nightclubs, house parties and radio stations everywhere. It was common to have the soulful R and B records playing on the jukeboxes while folks were dancing in the streets or singing in the barber shops and beauty parlors to the love songs that eventually captivated the hearts of millions of people throughout the world. Music CD's and rap music were not heard of during that period, it was all about the vinyl records and rhythm and blues soul.

The songs that were written by Motown songwriters during the 60's and 70's had so much meaning. They were songs that spoke about true love, current events and the heartache and pains of life experiences. Oh yes, Motown had it going on! Their music became universal music. Many of the soulful tunes crossed over into other markets such as pop, jazz, blues, etc. But just like George Benson said in one of his recordings 'Everything Must Change', and sure enough, he was right about the music.

After giving a lot of years support and fantastic music towards the City of Detroit, Motown transferred out and Rap/Hip Go moved within. Instead regarding hearing a person singing My Baby Enjoys Me as well as My Girl, you begun to hear new sounding lyrics associated with street experience expressed inside rhythms with the mouth, chest, hands and also feet therefore had in no way been heard before.

This brand new sound called Rap evolved within the early 80's and shot to popularity as a sky rocket within the late 90's along with New Millennium as Hip Hop/Rap. Even these days Rap/Hip Get music remains to be a variable billion buck genre. Millions of CD's, videos as well as DVD's can be purchased each year in the Hip Hop variety of music. And there is no sign that Hip Hop will be slowing straight down or taking a back seats to any person anytime shortly.

So what happened to the Motown sound? Did it die out? No! The Motown sound will never die out. It will always play a significant part in the hearts of millions who embraced it's sound back in the early 60's, and continued to pass that sound on to their children throughout the 70's, 80's and 90's.

Sometimes you just have to move over and let the new kids on the block have a turn in expressing their musical talents, songs and ideas. And now the Hip Hop artists are not the new kids on the block anymore, for they have taken their position to express themselves musically, just like the rhythm and blues artists took their position to express themselves in the Motown era.




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