Soundcheck: When Hip-Hop Goes Pop

posted in: Features • Pop • Urban

Mash-ups are a mainstay on the hip hop scene with rappers constantly collaborating to deliver fresh material.  Even the most vicious emcee paired up with the current R&B diva has a natural charm, and we’ve come to expect Rihanna, Beyoncé or Kelly Rowland backing up big verses from big rappers.  Now, it seems that hip hop has crossed over into the pop star realm, blurring the lines between the sugary sweet stylings of pop icons like Britney, Katy and Bieber with the hard-hitting sound of the streets.

We got our biggest dose of the crossover craze when Nicki Minaj announced she would join Britney Spears on her Femme Fatale Tour this year. In a groundbreaking move, fans of pop music’s reigning queen would be shoulder to shoulder with fans of the hottest thing to hit hip hop in years.  What resulted was one hell of a party!

Now, other singers are following suit, and pairing up with some unlikely collaborators. Justin Bieber will throw a little hip hop into the holidays when he releases Under The Mistletoe, on November 1.  The fifteen-track holiday album features a version of The Little Drummer Boy with none other than Busta Rhymes. We can’t imagine Rhymes’ grimy, gruff voice singing about the birth of Christ, but we’re all ears.  Other guests on the album will include Usher, Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey.

Katy Perry has jumped on the hip hop bandwagon more than once.  First, in 2010 when she had Snoop Dogg help launch her hit, California Girls to summer-anthem status, then again when she enlisted Kanye West to lend a verse to her hit, E.T.  The song, and resulting video landed them on top of the charts and earned them an MTV Video Music Award for Best Collaboration.

But when did this hip hop, pop merger stem from?  When did hardcore hip hop fans begin to digest the new style?  We think last year’s emergence of artists like Bruno Mars and B.o.B. had a lot to do with it. Mars sang the hook on B.o.B.’s mega-hit, Nothing On You and the rapper teamed up with Paramore‘s Hayley Williams for his hit, Airplanes. Both songs topped the charts and were in heavy rotation on both hip hop and Top 40 pop stations all year.

Wale was one of the first to catch on to the pop/rap craze.  Back in 2009, he recorded Chillin with Lady Gaga. The little-known track wasn’t released commercially, but the Maybach Music rapper who has new music out this fall (link to fall music preview) is hoping to rekindle the friendship now that she’s, well¦Gaga.

Let’s not forget what happens when Justin Timberlake, jumps on a hip hop track.  It goes HUGE! Although the former boy-band front-man hasn’t recorded an album in five years, he has blessed some tracks with cool cameos.  He sings the hook on Jamie Foxx’s Winner and helped T.I stay on the charts for months with Dead and Gone.

Taylor Swift is another unlikely candidate for a hip hop single, but that didn’t stop her from jumping onstage with Nicki Minaj last month to perform Super Bass at Clear Channel’s iheartradio concert in Las Vegas. The pair surprised fans with their  rendition of the hit, which Taylor made popular by rapping during a radio interview back in February.  While spitting the verse didn’t prompt a career change for the country cutie, Minaj thanked her for the shout-out, and likens her to a big bowl of ice cream.

Taylor wasn’t the first country cutie to attempt the genre-bending collaboration of country and hip hop.  In 2008, Nelly shocked everyone when he released the über-successful single, Over and Over with Tim McGraw. Now, three years later, Ludacris debuted Dirt Road Anthem featuring country crooner Jason Aldean during the 2011 Country Music Awards in June. The pair performed the Big K.R.I.T. “produced single to a crowd of puzzled country fans.

It seems not all mash-ups are created equal.  Overall, rappers taking risks, crossing genres, and fusing fans is a great thing for the music industry.  We’ve seen the same kind of songs soar up the hip hop charts for years, and the fun of pop music fused into the often darker subject matter of rap feels like a breath of fresh air. Now all we need is a Nicki/Gaga collabo.

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