breakdancing:

Acrobatic solo dancing improvised by the young “B-boys” who attended hip-hop dances.

funk music:

Centered on the creation of a strong rhythmic momentum or groove, with the electric bass and bass drum often playing on all four main beats of the measure, the snare drum and other instruments playing equally strongly on the second and fourth beats (the backbeats), and interlocking ostinato patterns distributed among other instruments, including guitar, keyboards, and horns. Funk brought the focus on dancing back into the pop mainstream.

hip-hop:

Hip-hop culture, forged by African American and Caribbean American youth in New York City, included distinctive styles of visual art (graffiti), dance (an acrobatic solo style called breakdancing and an energetic couple dance called the freak), music, dress, and speech. Hip-hop was at first a local phenomenon, centered in certain neighborhoods in the Bronx, the most economically devastated area of New York City.

mento:

A style of Jamaican music that led to reggae. It arose in rural Jamaica during the late nineteenth century.

outlaw country:

A term used by the record industry to capitalize on the overlap between audiences for rock and country music. It included Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings.

progressive country:

In progressive country, performers wrote songs that were more intellectual and liberal in outlook than their contemporaries and were more concerned with testing the limits of the country music tradition than with scoring hits. The key artists included Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Tom T. Hall, and Townes Van Zandt.

punk rock:

Rock style that emerged in the late 1970s. It was a “back to basics” rebellion against the perceived artifice and pretension of corporate rock music—a stripped-down and often purposefully “nonmusical” version of rock music.

rap:

Emerged during the 1970s as one part of the cultural complex of hip-hop. It consisted of rhymed speech accompanied by funk-derived rhythmic grooves.

reggae:

Born in the impoverished shantytowns of Kingston, Jamaica, reggae first became popular in the United States in 1973, after the release of the Jamaican film The Harder They Come and its soundtrack album. The heart of reggae music consists of “riddims,” interlocking rhythmic patterns played by the guitar, bass, and drums. The guitar often plays short, choppy chords on the second and fourth beats of each measure, giving the music a bouncy, up-and-down feeling. The bass-drum combination is the irreducible core of a reggae band, sometimes called the “riddim pair.” Political messages were central to reggae music.

rock steady:

A transitional style of Jamaican music between ska and reggae. It is slower in tempo than ska. Some of its leading exponents—notably Alton Ellis, who had the first big rock steady hit in 1966, began to record songs with social and political content.

sampling:

A digital recording process wherein a sound source is recorded with a microphone, converted to a digital stream of binary numbers, and stored in a computer. The sampled sounds may be retrieved in a number of ways.

scratching:

The sound produced when a record disc is spun backward and forward on a turntable. The distinctive sound of scratching became an important part of the sonic palette of hip-hop music

ska:

A style of Jamaican music that led to reggae. It combined elements of Jamaican folk music and American R&B.