…didn’t you hear?”

So, growing up I never was a massive fan of HipHop music. However, over the past two years I’ve been loving contemporary R&B and HipHop, and always thought it was just because my taste of music was growing, it never occurred to me that it could be because HipHop music is changing rapidly.

Artists such as Brockhampton, Mac Miller, Kevin Absract and Roy Blair have been using the combination of these two completely different genres, using country-based harmony, soft-timbred instruments such as guitars, strings, even flutes alongside 808 beats and rapping, contemporary HipHop seems to have a softer, more fluid feel.

Both genres have things that hold it back, sometimes country music seems too structured, and HipHop production has often been quite harsh sounding, however the merge of the two genres releases them from those drawbacks. The passion in rap colliding with the softness of country does something magical, and it seems to create a space for the artist to be even more expressive.

The tone of this work simply goes well with lyrics that are about struggles, love and pain. Rappers like Kevin Abstract, Roy Blair and Mac Miller, are incorporating more vocals due to the use of harmony in the songs, sometimes singing themselves, or by working with other artists. Brockhampton, a band that doesn’t shy away from collaboration, incorporates vocals from artists like Roy Blair, and Ryan Beatty to give their songs more depth.

 It seems that this trend is encouraging a more supportive HipHop community. People are more open to not just work with others but praise one another’s work, of course music will always be competitive, but in the past HipHop has glorified feuds with other artists, as we saw with Kendrick Lamar and Drake back in 2013. Shading the competition in a song was something fans would lap up, it still happens, in all music genres, but it’s refreshing to see that HipHop/Folk is heading in a different direction. We also see LGBTQ HipHop artists such as Kevin Abstract creating work in this style, which is so amazing, but bizarre as both HipHop and country have a history of not being accepting of homosexuality.

This trend feels like chicken or egg, it’s hard to see which came first, whether the current style of production simply works with these topics that are more emotive and accepting, or if HipHop artists simply wanted to change the way they create work because they want to expresses themselves. With the way it’s evolving it’s exciting to think that HipHop music will be mixing in the mainstream and growing into other genres.

As someone who was never interested in HipHop music, and now loves it as much as pop, it’s so inspiring to see these new techniques and collaborations, but also the way the genre is evolving to be more accepting, enabling it to have the wider audience it deserves.