Using “Urban” as a Genre

[tagteam]

Hello MLR members!
I thought I would share some music news that has come across my tagging practices. I created a blog on my site that discusses the controversy of using “Urban” as a genre and how the record industry and Grammys are re-thinking and eliminating the use of Urban as a genre of music to describe rap and hip hop. Some replacement genres are R&B, Hip Hop, Alt R&B and Contemporary R&B. For more details on this issue, check out my blog:
https://tagteamanalysis.com/2020/07/using-the-urban-tag-as-a-genre/

[Art Munson]

Thanks tagteam, something I have been wondering about.

[Pat]

Makes sense to me. When I was a kid in New York there was a popular black DJ on the radio named Frankie Crocker who I believe actually coined the phrase “Urban Contemporary” to describe music by black artists.To me,the term “urban music” became the new “race music” term from the 40’s and 50’s though I never gave it much thought then. In either case,it insinuates race as being exclusive to those styles and it simply doesn’t apply now like it once did. All kinds of people perform RnB and Hip Hop nowadays. We don’t say “white music” to describe folk music or country music. We call it folk or country music so yeah,I think it would be a step forward to just call music by style and not race. It’s way past time to move forward beyond that stuff. Just my thoughts.

[Author]

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