“Tell us straight-up: What is Bridge?” Not to sound jerkishly circular, but to rigidly define Bridge is to disregard one of its salient features, which is that it is not conspicuously one thing. It is more like, say, gumbo than, say, tomato soup.
“What about Ja Rule singing, “Baby girl put it on meeeeee!” or 50 crooning, “If I was your best friend,”…is that Bridge?” Categorically, "NO!" At the turn of the century, artists like Ja Rule, Nelly and 50 Cent were blurring the lines between rap and R&B along with singers like, R. Kelly and homeless-man knockoffs like, Marques Houston. But think about Bridge as a hop artist blurring the line between hop and soul. Think Andre 3000 and Mos and Cee-Lo borrowing heavily from artists like Prince and Marvin and D’Angelo and Bilal.
Or you could think about typical soul artists raising the energy and decibels to rock-levels or dispensing with some of the chivalrous romance or scorned heartbreak for the stark storytelling of hip-hop.
“Should we call a hop track a Bridge track the moment we hear a trumpet or piano or some soul artist singing the hook?”
Not quite. Producers, such as Pete Rock, Diamond D, Showbiz, Prince Paul and others have long employed jazzy, soulful sounding piano chords or horn-riffs for their beats. But they were also sampled and tended to loop within that familiar four or eight-bar hip-hop structure. That’s what made hip-hop, hip-hop: the fact that these music geniuses were taking previously recorded instruments and creating new rhythms and melodies. Bridge music often, but not always, features backdrops of live instrumentation, usually fit with improvisation most poignantly featured in jazz. It can also be a typical studio produced track with extended breaks (bridges), complex arrangements, etc.
“So when do these songs or albums officially become Bridge?” What we don’t want to do is stick the Bridge-tag on every hop album with non-hop elements or soul album with non-soul elements. To do that is to disservice hop and soul. You can do extremely creative hop and soul (see Black On Both Sides, Like Water For Chocolate, Reflection Eternal, Aquemeni, Native Tongues albums, Black Star, Game Theory, Late Registration, Be, Mama‘s Gun, Voodoo, Best By Far, 1st Born Second) that has discernible Bridge elements (the employment of a diverse palette of genres).
But at some point you get to a space where hip-hop or soul or rock is not dominating the music and the mix of styles and genres is so drastic and far-reaching (Check Ya Head, New Danger, Circus, Perfect Imperfections, Atlantis, Worldwide Underground, St. Elsewhere) that it becomes a music that defies any current definition or box, hence Bridge.
“Why are you guys creating a genre for artists and music that is clearly made with no intention to be defined or fit in a box?” That’s a good question. Ultimately, Bridge will develop and change its shape and direction multiple times over the years. By putting a name on this new music we feel like we are recognizing a new, creative movement in music. The fact that we are intently refraining from any rigid definition of what is and isn’t Bridge is an acknowledgement of the very nature of the artistic freedom that these artists are employing and undoubtedly want to maintain. Have you ever read an interview where an artist is asked if they’re a hip-hop artist or neo-soul artist or rock star or whatever and they say something like, “Man, I’m just making music.” Well, that’s really the spirit of Bridge: artists taking music wherever their creative energy leads them, with no mandate to stay “true to hip-hop” or appeal to the incense-burning vegan at the poetry reading. Bridge isn’t a dumpster for trash without a home, it’s more like an umbrella covering much of the creativity taking music down brand new paths.
“OK, you tried to explain, but we need to get it from the source. What albums should we listen to so that we can HEAR Bridge?” These are some classic examples:
Cee-Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections; Cee-Lo (2002): Who did he think he was? George Clinton? “El Dorado Sunrise” has a gospel-feel that people know now from his stint with Gnarls Barkley. There was hop was colored with jazz chorus horns (“One For The Road”); “Spend The Night In Your Mind” is straight-up, pillow-talk soul; “Bass Head Jazz“ is just that and “Microhard“ is straight-spittin’, but with a weird-twisted backdrop.
The New Danger;Mos Def (2004): He went everywhere from straight up hard rock (“Freaky Black“) to sexy-seduction (“The Panties“) to hard-hop (“Grown Man Business“), to blues (“Blue Black Jack“) to rock/rap-god arrogance(“The Easy Spell“) to masterful, soul-reprisals (“Modern Marvel“) to hardcore-raw-emotion (“The Beggar“) to industry-social-critique (“The Rape Over“).
The Love Below;Andre 3000 of OutKast (2003): Our boy 3000 was astral-traveling. Yeah, that was hip-hop, but only in essence. Ultimately, iy was too diverse to throw in one of the current boxes.
Electric Circus; Common (2002): Rock, techno, soul, hop. Where didn’t Common go?
How I Do; Res (2001) This wasn’t exactly your typical soul album. Much of Res’ effort was rooted in soul, but hop, too. She also took listeners to corners of trip-hop and hipster-alternative, like we were all supposed to be there. But once we stepped into the spot, we didn’t want to leave.
Fly or Die;N.E.R.D (2004): Is it rock? Pharrell and Chad have the raging guitars that would say, “Yeah.” But what about all the rapping and crooning and grooving and songs with several breaks that act like suites? Sounds like a bastard to us.
Worldwide Underground;Erykah Badu (2003): Was this really another neo-soul album? Think about that, though. By the time Worldwide dropped, neo-soul was becoming hackneyed and Erykah doesn’t do hackneyed. So she gave you an EP with the feel of soul-rock jam session with a hip-hop swagger. Some of the arrangements, like “I Want You”, had jazz complexities.
The Headphone Masterpiece;Cody ChestnuTT (2004): The sound so diverse and dank and defiant and tripped out. Brolic said it best: “This is a brilliant musician who pulled off being Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, Prince, Terrence Trent Darby, Rick James and Ice-T simultaneously while playing the guitar like a smoked-out Lenny Kravitz in the back ground.”
Phrenology;The Roots (2002): With all the electronica (“!!!!!!!”) and lengthy-explorations (“Water”) smooth-vibin’ (“Complexity”), this couldn’t be just a hop album. Even if it does feature belligerent emceeing over true-school break-beats (“Thought At Work”).
Trip To Light Fantastic;Ladybug Mecca (2005): She said it best herself in a recent interview: “I can't put a label on it and that's what I love about it the most. It's not R&B, it's not hip-hop, it's not rock, it's not bossa-nova or samba, you know, it's all of that.”
Atlantis: Hymns For Disco; K-Os (2006): Reggae, hop, rock, soul, break beats, acoustic guitar, Motown grooves -- it’s all here.
For Lovers, Dreamers and Me; Alice Smith (2006): One day you want to call this album (one of the most impressive debuts in a while) a rock album. The next day it might hit you like a soul album. In the end its just music, great music. And that’s Bridge to the core.
Two albums -- Q-Tip’s Kamaal the Abstract and Bilal’s Love For Sale – remain unreleased largely because record labels find it too risky to release these works that seem allergic to today’s already predetermine fields.
