Jazz Rap

5 profiles tagged Jazz Rap, A-Z.

Jazz rap emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s in New York, as hip-hop producers began sampling jazz recordings and, in some cases, incorporating live jazz instrumentation and musicians into rap production. It is distinguished by mellow, jazz-derived samples (piano, upright bass, horns) and often more reflective, wordplay-driven lyrical styles than more aggressive contemporaneous hip-hop. Gang Starr, A Tribe Called Quest, and Digable Planets are among its most closely associated pioneering acts.