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New Jack Swing - TV Tropes

  • ️Mon Feb 29 2016

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New Jack Swing (trope)

Primary Stylistic Influences:

"Our music is mentally hip-hop, smoothed out on the R&B tip, with a pop feel appeal to it."

— Bell Biv DeVoe, quoted on the cover of their debut album, Poison

New Jack Swing (also referred to as "swingbeat" in the UK) is a popular music genre that was established in the late '80s and peaked in popularity during the early '90s. A fusion of R&B, Pop, Funk, Hip-Hop, Jazz, and Electro, new jack swing is characterized by a swinging funk rhythm, drum machine swingbeat (typically from a Roland TR‑808 or TR-909), funky synth bassline (typically from a Yamaha DX7 or Roland D50), Sampling and singing vocals. The genre emerged in the US, UK and Japan around the mid‑1980s. In turn, the genre modernized the swinging rhythms of swing jazz (an older style of African-American music) and go-go (a style of funk) with electronic instruments.

There's debate as to who actually started the genre, but the genre's origins can be traced back to several music producers in the mid-1980s. The Trope Makers include the Flyte Tyme team (Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis) from Minneapolis (Minnesota), Teddy Riley from Harlem (New York), Kurtis Mantronik (Kurtis el Khaleel) from Jamaica (based in New York at the time), and Junior Giscombe from London (UK). New jack swing arose from combining R&B and funk with hip hop production techniques and Japanese Electronic Music instruments (such as the Roland TR-808 and Yamaha DX7) along with the swinging rhythms of older swing jazz.

Incidentally, a similar sound was earlier anticipated in Japan during the early '80s, where City Pop producers dabbling in Jazz Fusion revived and modernized the swinging rhythms of older swing jazz. As a result, a number of Japanese city pop songs of that era had swinging rhythms similar to new jack swing. City pop was also greatly influenced by African‑American funk music and Japanese techno-kayō production techniques (especially Yellow Magic Orchestra, who also greatly influenced American hip hop). On both sides of the Pacific, a similar sound emerged from a similar fusion of African‑American funk music, Japanese electronic production techniques and older swing jazz rhythms. The term "new jack swing" more commonly refers to US and UK artists, whereas Japanese artists with a similar sound are more commonly labelled "city pop" or "J-funk" instead.

In addition to being Trope Makers, Teddy Riley and Flyte Tyme are also considered Trope Codifiers. Some of Riley's earliest productions for New York based rappers such as Slick Rick and Kool Moe Dee were noted for their unique swinging beats and melodies, which were uncommon at the time in hip hop. Meanwhile, Flyte Tyme, after being sacked from The Time by Prince in 1983, took The Minneapolis Sound made famous by their former boss and added smoother R&B stylings and hip hop influenced drums, using this style to create hits for the SOS Band, Alexander O'Neal and Cherelle. But it was Control, their 1986 collaboration with Janet Jackson, that established the musical style that would eventually be known as "new jack swing". Janet could thus be considered a Genre Popularizer alongside Riley and Flyte Tyme.

The timeline of the new jack swing era's peak years is generally agreed to have coincided with the The Golden Age of Hip Hop (1987-1994). The new jack swing sound was fully developed in Keith Sweat's Make It Last Forever, produced by Riley and Sweat, and which was released in November 1987. During its peak years, R&B and hip hop artists alike flocked to to the new jack sound, with varying degrees of success. Male artists such as Al B. Sure!, Bobby Brown and Big Bub were given a more "streetwise" edge thanks to the genre's hard hitting drum beats, while rappers jumped on it to appeal to a wider audience (or, in the case of LL Cool J, be more effective at making rap ballads).

By the early 1990s, new jack swing had hit its ultimate peak. Movies like New Jack City and House Party were influenced by the sound and style it had created, with the co-writter of the former, Barry Michael Cooper, suggesting the genre be named after the movie. This makes Cooper the Trope Namer. Not even Michael Jackson could turn a blind eye at its popularity, and enlisted Teddy Riley's services for Dangerous, and Jam & Lewis' later for HIStory: Past, Present, and Future -- Book I. In turn, Michael Jackson became heavily associated with the genre during the early '90s.

Meanwhile back in Japan, things eventually came full circle. Japanese city pop (which had anticipated a similar sound in the early '80s) began being influenced by American new jack swing (which was influenced by Japanese electronic production) in the late '80s. While there were earlier parallels between city pop and new jack swing, Toshinobu Kubota was the first Japanese city pop artist to be directly inspired by American new jack swing, followed by artists such as Gwinko, Yōko Oginome, SMAP and Kiichi Yokoyama. City pop and new jack swing eventually merged into what would become known as J-Pop by the early '90s. In turn, this had a strong influence on Japanese Video Game Music of the time, notably Sega franchises such as Altered Beast, Streets of Rage and Sonic the Hedgehog; the latter's Sonic the Hedgehog 3 even had music from Michael Jackson's team. The genre also crossed over to Korea, where it influenced a great deal of K-Pop artists in the '90s, such as Park Mi Kyung, Kim Wan-sun and Seo Taiji.

Of course, with its popularity, backlash was inevitable. Many hardcore and alternative rappers had taken shots at new jack swing rappers for "whitewashing" the core message of hip hop just to get radio airplay. One such insult from A Tribe Called Quest on their track "Jazz (We've Got)" led to new jack rap group Wreckx-N-Effect beating the holy hell out of Tribe member Q-Tip outside of a New York nightclub. And while new jack swing remained popular into the early nineties, Grunge and G-Funk soon overtook it, being considered the more "authentic" sound than the pop-influenced R&B sound of new jack swing. By the mid-90's, even some the sound's founding fathers were beginning to move away from new jack, or at least downplay it's presence in their work. Blackstreet's self-titled Teddy Riley-produced debut, despite being firmly rooted in new jack swing, was strongly influenced by the G-Funk wave, and was labelled as "Heavy R&B" by Riley, while Flyte Tyme's work on janet. ventured into Hip Hop Soul, and introduced elements of rock, House Music, jazz, and Trip Hop into their existing new jack framework.

By 1995, the new jack sound was considered outdated by many, but the genre still survived until 1997, succeeded by its spiritual successors Hip Hop Soul and Neo Soul, which remain popular today. The last hit single to use the classic new jack swing sound was Michael Jackson's "Blood On The Dance Floor", released in 1997. Despite its decline in the US, it remained moderately popular in Asia, continuing to inform pop and video game music to an extent up through the early 2000s, rubbing off a bit on Western composers as well during that time. New jack swing also had a significant influence on Contemporary R&B, Teen Pop and Boy Band music during the late '90s to early 2000s, adopting NJS characteristics such as a swingbeat rhythm or orchestral hits. By the mid-2000s, these NJS characteristics began to disappear from pop music.

Since its heyday, NJS has had periodic comebacks for brief periods of time. In the mid-2000s, new jack swing started making a comeback, fueled by the Teddy Riley-led "New Jack Reunion Tour" in 2006, as well as VH1's Hip Hop Honors paying tribute to the genre in 2007. The New '10s saw the genre make a return to the charts, with Paramore's "Ain't It Fun" and Bruno Mars' "That's What I Like" and "Finesse" all hitting the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 between 2014 and 2018. New jack swing also made its return to mainstream video games with the release of Sonic Mania in 2017. New jack swing's heavy influence on K-Pop also helped fuel its revival further during the K-Pop boom of the 2010s. Coincidentally, Teddy Riley himself personally had a hand in producing for several K-pop acts during this period. In the early 2020s, the Japanese city pop revival led to renewed interest in new jack swing due to similarities between the two genres.

The Other Wiki has a comprehensive list of artists who've dabbled in New Jack Swing at one point or another.

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Early examples of new jack swing 

Notable new jack swing albums 

  • 2 Hype (Kid 'N Play, 1988)
  • 24K Magic (Bruno Mars, 2016) note 
  • 2Pacalypse Now (Tupac Shakur, 1991)
  • Act Like You Know (MC Lyte, 1991)
  • Acquired Taste (Junior Giscombe, 1985)
  • Affairs of the Heart (Jody Watley, 1991)
  • Affection (Lisa Stansfield, 1989)
  • Age Ain't Nothing But a Number (Aaliyah, 1994)
  • The Album (Mantronix, 1985)
  • All About Girls (Da Freshmen, 1994)
  • All or Nothing (Milli Vanilli, 1988; re-released a year later as Girl You Know It's True in the US)
  • Attitude (Troop, 1989)
  • Back From Hell (Run–D.M.C., 1990)
  • Back on the Block (Quincy Jones, 1990)
  • Beach of the War Goddess (Caron Wheeler, 1993)
  • The Beat, the Rhyme, the Noise (Wee Papa Girl Rappers, 1988)
  • Bedtime Stories (Madonna, 1994)
  • Big Tyme (Heavy D, 1989)
  • Black Reign (Queen Latifah, 1993)
  • Blackstreet (Blackstreet, 1994)
  • Black's Magic (Salt-N-Pepa, 1990)
  • Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix (Michael Jackson, 1997)
  • Bobby (Bobby Brown, 1992)
  • Born Into the '90s (R. Kelly, 1992)
  • Born to Sing (En Vogue, 1990)
  • Brown Sugar (D'Angelo, 1995)
  • Bulletproof Heart (Grace Jones, 1989)
  • Candy Rain (Soul 4 Real, 1995)
  • Changes (Christopher Williams, 1992)
  • A Closer Look (Babyface, 1990)
  • Chuckii (Chuckii Booker, 1989)
  • Club Classics Vol. 1 (Soul II Soul, 1989; known as Keep on Movin' in North America)
  • Code Red (DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, 1993)
  • Cold Blood (Flex, 1990)
  • Cooleyhighharmony (Boyz II Men, 1991)
  • Control (Janet Jackson, 1986)
  • Conversation Peace (Stevie Wonder, 1995)
  • Crash (The Human League, 1986; notably produced by Janet Jackson's production team)
  • Damian Dame (Damian Dame, 1991)
  • Dangerous (Michael Jackson, 1991; currently the best-selling new jack swing album of all time)
  • Diamonds and Pearls (Prince & The New Power Generation, 1991)
  • Diamonds in the Raw (The S.O.S. Band, 1989)
  • Dimensions of Double R&B (MCJ & Cool G, 1995)
  • Diary of a Mad Band (Jodeci, 1993)
  • Down Upbeat (Casiopea, 1984)
  • Don't Be Cruel (Bobby Brown, 1988; was the best selling new jack swing album until the release of Michael Jackson's Dangerous)
  • Doo-Bop (Miles Davis, released posthumously in 1992)
  • Dragon's Heart (Jackie Chan, 1996) note 
  • Erotica (Madonna, 1992)
  • Face the Music (New Kids on the Block, 1994)
  • Face the Nation (Kid 'N Play, 1991)
  • Faithful (Hi-Five, 1993)
  • Father's Day (Father MC, 1990)
  • Fever for da Flavor (H-Town, 1993)
  • For the Cool in You (Babyface, 1993)
  • The Force Behind the Power (Diana Ross, 1991)
  • Forever My Lady (Jodeci, 1991)
  • Forever Your Girl (Paula Abdul, 1988)
  • Free (Prince Markie Dee & The Soul Convention, 1992)
  • From Tokyo (Hideki Saijo, 1986)
  • Funhouse (Kid 'N Play, 1990)
  • Funke, Funke Wisdom (Kool Moe Dee, 1991)
  • The Future (Guy, 1991)
  • Gems (Patti LaBelle, 1994)
  • Growing (Rina Chinen, 1998)
  • Guy (Guy, 1988)
  • Hard or Smooth (Wreckx-N-Effect, 1992)
  • The Harlem Sessions (Teddy Riley, 1996)
  • Hearsay (Alexander O'Neal, 1987)
  • Help (Timmy Gatling, 1989)
  • Heartbreak (New Edition, 1988)
  • Heritage (Earth, Wind & Fire, 1990)
  • Hey Man, Smell My Finger (George Clinton, 1993)
  • Hi-Five (Hi-Five, 1990)
  • High Hat (Boy George, 1989)
  • HIStory: Past, Present, and Future -- Book I (Michael Jackson, 1995)
  • Homebase (DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince, 1991)
  • Honesty (Junior Giscombe, 1995)
  • How Ya Like Me Now (Kool Moe Dee, 1987)
  • II D Extreme (II D Extreme, 1992)
  • I'm Real (James Brown, 1988)
  • In Effect Mode (Al B. Sure!, 1988)
  • Intimacy (Jody Watley, 1994)
  • Invitation to Love (The Deele, 1993)
  • Is That the Way? (M.I.N.D., 1992)
  • It Takes Two (Rob Base & DJ EZ-Rock, 1988)
  • It's About Time (SWV, 1992)
  • It's a Big Daddy Thing (Big Daddy Kane, 1989)
  • Ivory (Teena Marie, 1990)
  • Jamaican Funk: Canadian Style (Michie Mee & L.A. Sunshine, 1991)
  • Jane Child (Jane Child, 1989)
  • janet. (Janet Jackson, 1993)
  • Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814 (Janet Jackson, 1989)
  • Jasmine Guy (Jasmine Guy, 1990)
  • Johnny Gill (Johnny Gill, 1990)
  • Just Coolin' (LeVert, 1988)
  • Jungle Fever Soundtrack (Stevie Wonder, 1991)
  • Keep It Comin' (Keith Sweat, 1991)
  • Keep It Goin' On (Hi-Five, 1992)
  • Kool Moe Dee (Kool Moe Dee, 1986)
  • Knowledge Is King (Kool Moe Dee, 1989)
  • Larger Than Life (Jody Watley, 1989)
  • Let's Get to It (Kylie Minogue, 1991)
  • Livin' Large (Heavy D, 1987)
  • Look How Long (Loose Ends, 1990)
  • Love's Alright (Eddie Murphy, 1993)
  • The Lover in Me (Sheena Easton, 1988)
  • Lovers Lane (MC Brains, 1992)
  • Make It Last Forever (Keith Sweat, 1987)
  • Mama Said Knock You Out (LL Cool J, 1990)
  • Men At Large (Men At Large, 1992)
  • Millennium (Earth, Wind & Fire, 1993)
  • Music from the New World (Bryan Loren, 1992)
  • Music Madness (Mantronix, 1986)
  • Nickle Bag of Swing (Teddy Riley, 1994)
  • Niice 'N Wiild (Chuckii Booker, 1992)
  • Nuttin But Love (Heavy D, 1994)
  • Ooooooooh... On the TLC Tip! (TLC, 1992)
  • On Our Worst Behaviour (Immature, 1992)
  • One of Many Nights (The S.O.S. Band, 1991)
  • Passion Play (Teena Marie, 1994)
  • Peaceful Journey (Heavy D, 1991)
  • Peep This (Jamie Foxx, 1994)
  • Personal (Men Of Vizion, 1996)
  • Peter Andre (Peter Andre, 1993)
  • Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em (MC Hammer, 1990)
  • Poetic Justice Soundtrack (various artists, 1993)
  • Poison (Bell Biv DeVoe, 1990)
  • Portrait (Portrait, 1992)
  • Private Times... And The Whole 9! (Al B. Sure!, 1990)
  • Q's Jook Joint (Quincy Jones, 1995)
  • R.I.F. (Rappin' Is Fundamental, 1990)
  • Ralph Tresvant (Ralph Tresvant, 1990)
  • Raw Like Sushi (Neneh Cherry, 1989)
  • The Red Tape (DJ Quik, 1987)
  • The Revival (Tony! Toni! Toné!, 1990)
  • Riff (Riff, 1991)
  • The Real Chuckeeboo (Loose Ends, 1988)
  • Return of the Mack (Mark Morrison, 1996)
  • Rob & Fab (Rob & Fab, 1992)
  • Rope-a-Dope Style (LeVert, 1990)
  • Rhythm & Romance (The System, 1989)
  • Sailing Blaster (Hiroshi Sato, 1984)
  • Seal (Seal, 1991)
  • Secrets of Flying (Johnny Kemp, 1987)
  • Sexy Versus (Al B. Sure!, 1992)
  • S·F·X (Haruomi Hosono, 1984)
  • A Shade Of Red (Redhead Kingpin And The F.B.I., 1988)
  • SMAP 001 (SMAP, 1992)
  • SMAP 002 (SMAP, 1992)
  • SMAP 003 (SMAP, 1993)
  • SMAP 004 (SMAP, 1993)
  • SMAP 005 (SMAP, 1994)
  • SMAP 007: Gold Singer (SMAP, 1995)
  • SMAP 008: Tacomax (SMAP, 1996)
  • So Listen (MCJ & Cool G, 1990)
  • Sons of Soul (Tony! Toni! Toné!, 1993)
  • Stand Strong (Junior Giscombe, 1990)
  • Sunshine, Moonlight (Toshinobu Kubota, 1995)
  • Straight Outta Hell's Kitchen (Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam, 1991)
  • Symphony in Effect (Maestro Fresh Wes, 1989)
  • T.E.V.I.N. (Tevin Campbell, 1991)
  • Take Me Higher (Diana Ross, 1995)
  • There's Nothing Like This (Omar, 1990)
  • This Is How We Do It (Montell Jordan, 1995)
  • To Whom It May Concern (Riff, 1994)
  • Too Legit 2 Quit (MC Hammer, 1991)
  • La Toya (La Toya Jackson, 1989, also known as You're Gonna Get Rocked!)
  • Troop (Troop, 1988)
  • Try 'N' B (Try 'N' B, 1992; known as Sexy Eyes in select regions)
  • Unbreakable (Don-E, 1992)
  • Usher (Usher, 1995)
  • Very Necessary (Salt-N-Pepa, 1993)
  • Vol 2: 1990 - A New Decade (Soul II Soul, 1990)
  • What Comes Naturally (Sheena Easton. 1991)
  • What's the 411? (Mary J. Blige, 1992)
  • Who? (Tony! Toni! Toné!, 1988)
  • Winter Gift EP (Zen-La-Rock, 2011)
  • Words from the Genius (The GZA, 1991)
  • Workin' Overtime (Diana Ross, 1989)
  • Wreckx-N-Effect (Wreckx-N-Effect, 1989)
  • You Said (Jermaine Jackson, 1991)

Notable record producers 

Video game soundtracks featuring or influenced by new jack swing 

Movies featuring or influenced by new jack swing 

TV shows featuring or influenced by new jack swing