Music Monday — What are you listening to? (Hip Hop and R&B Edition)

cover image source: Giphy

We're rounding out February with another awesome pair of musical genres — Hip Hop and R&B — both of which originated from Black American culture. And, to be clear, when I mention Hip Hop, I'm including Rap in that same realm. In case you didn't notice, for the past few weeks, we've been traveling back in time to look at music that was created and/or popularized by Black Americans. Earlier this month, we looked at Jazz & Blues which ruled the scene in the first half century of the 1900s and continues on with dedicated scenes today. After that, we turned our eyes to Funk, Soul, Disco, & Reggae — all of which flourished throughout the 70's and again, are still much loved today. Now, we look to Hip Hop, which has grown from humble beginnings at 70's block parties in NYC to one of the most popular genres in the world today! Notably, I feel like R&B often gets tacked onto Hip Hop (shoot, I'm guilty of it here) but to me, I think of it as an evolution of Soul mixed with Pop — and yes, it's grown alongside Hip Hop, so has those elements too. R&B is sort of a culmination of a lot of the genres that we've been talking about this month. But, what is a music genre anyway? 🤷‍♂️ Haha, this entry paragraph has been too long already... let's listen to some Hip Hop and R&B.

How we do

In this weekly series, folks can chime in and drop links to whatever it is they've been listening to recently + browse others' suggestions. You can follow the suggested genre if you'd like, but don't feel confined to it; you're free to suggest whatever you wanna. 🙌

If you're interested in having other discussions about music, consider following the aptly named #music discussions organization.