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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. |
