Jazz rap is a sub-genre of hip hop which incorporates jazz influences, developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The lyrics are often based on political consciousness, Afrocentricity, and general positivism. Allmusic writes that the genre "was an attempt to fuse African-American music of the past with a newly dominant form of the present, paying tribute to and reinvigorating the former while expanding the horizons of the latter". Musically, the rhythms have been typically those of hip hop rather than jazz, over which are placed repetitive phrases of jazz instrumentation: trumpet, double bass, etc. The amount of improvisation varies between artists: some groups improvise lyrics and solos, while many of them do not.
Read more about Jazz Rap: Precursor, Beginnings of A Trend, Native Tongues, Jazz Artists Come To Hip Hop, 1990s–present
Famous quotes containing the words jazz and/or rap:
“It seems to me monstrous that anyone should believe that the jazz rhythm expresses America. Jazz rhythm expresses the primitive savage.”
—Isadora Duncan (1878–1927)
“The myth of black women profiting at the expense of black men is the oldest rap around.”
—Johnnetta Betsch Cole (b. 1936)