Music website - Genres Page

Rap music is stylistically and lyrically diverse, representing a range of experiences and worldviews that characterize the multiple and changing voices among African American youth. Rap is original poetry recited in rhythm and rhyme over prerecorded instrumental tracks. Rap music (also referred to as rap or hip-hop music) evolved in conjunction with the cultural movement called hip-hop. Rap emerged as a minimalist street sound against the backdrop of the heavily orchestrated and formulaic music coming from the local house parties to dance clubs in the early 1970s. Its earliest performers comprise MCs (derived from master of ceremonies but referring to the actual rapper) and DJs (who use and often manipulate pre-recorded tracks as a backdrop to the rap), break dancers and graffiti writers.

Rock is a broad genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles from the mid-1960s, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, a style that drew directly from the blues and rhythm and blues genres of African-American music and from country music. Rock also drew strongly from genres such as electric blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz and other musical styles.

Alternative rock is a broad style of Rock that generally consists of verse-chorus song structures performed with a less commercial sensibility. The genre developed in the independent music scenes of the 1980s, being heavily indebted to the do-it-yourself spirit of Punk and the music of The Velvet Underground. Common characteristics typically include a blend of often melodic, traditional songwriting with more eccentric sounds drawing from that of punk’s, moodier or quirkier lyricism, and sometimes ample amounts of guitar-based distortion and fuzz.