Miami bass
You must add a |reason= parameter to this Cleanup template – replace it with {{Cleanup|December 2005|reason=<Fill reason here>}}, or remove the Cleanup template.
| Miami Bass | |
|---|---|
| Stylistic origins | Disco, Hip-Hop, Electro |
| Cultural origins | 1985, South Florida, U.S. |
| Typical instruments | Roland TR-808 E-mu's Emulator II E-mu SP1200 Sampler; Akai Sampler |
| Derivative forms | Crunk Florida breaks Ghettotech Ghetto House Baltimore Club |
| Subgenres | |
| Car Audio Bass Electro Bass (complete list) | |
| Fusion genres | |
| Baile funk Electro Bass | |
| Regional scenes | |
| Baile funk | |
| Other topics | |
| Freestyle music | |
Miami Bass is a sub-genre of Hip-Hop/rap music popular in the 1980's and 1990's that is notably different than standard Hip-Hop due to its prominent use of the Roland TR-808 sustained kick drum, the slightly higher dance tempos, and the occasional sexually explicit lyrical content. It is often misunderstood as Florida’s sustaining of the Electro sub-genre of Hip-Hop after its decline in New York area. On the contrary, Florida’s Electro scene paralleled that of New York and Los Angeles, but it was when Rick Rubin slowed the tempo down and removed robotic elements in mid-80’s Hip-Hop that Miami Bass arose out of the ashes of Electro and Disco. Generally speaking, Miami Bass can be broken down into a number of waves, and is subject to much misinterpretation.
Prologue
Henry Stone was seen as head of the only music empire in Miami from 1950-1981. He’s had his hand in careers such as James Brown and Ray Charles, but after he and Steve Alaimo began fostering the writing/producing team of Willie Clark and Clarence Reid did the Florida sound begin to take shape. Once the 1970’s arrived, a new writing/production partnership of Harry Wayne Casey and Rick Finch was blossoming under Henry’s assorted record labels, and they helped usher in the Disco era, reaching stratospheric heights with KC and the Sunshine Band. However, the Disco backlash caused an abrupt end to Henry’s TK Records and associated labels. This left a gaping hole in the Miami music scene, which aligned time wise with the new trend of rap records.
From Disco to Florida Electro and Proto-Freestyle
A Sheep leaves the flock - the roots of Pandisc Records: Bo Crane was an employee for Henry Stone, but he decided to leave the company in 1980 before TK’s demise in an attempt to compete with Henry. Bo was known for his record pool, as being the DJ to the exclusive Disco club Honey for the Bears, and much like Tommy Boy Records’ Tom Silverman, he published a report on hot club records. With all of this under his belt, he began Palm Tree Records, and Red Rooster Records with the band NRBQ. After TK’s fall, he even went so far as to recruit Clarence Reid just as Clarence’s X-rated parody persona Blowfly was finding its niche. However, Bo was no where near finding success as Disco was dying in the U.S. and he failed to corner a contemporary creative source to produce this new trend of rap records. His coaching of Blowfly to perform on his X-rated antics on Electro records could not find an audience in 1984, and Bo floundered a bit until his formation of Pandisc Records began to acquire contemporary acts.
Freestyle (the group and the genre): It was a future convicted drug dealer named Sherman Nealey who funded Electro records produced by Pretty Tony Butler that found success with the first Miami based urban music to cause a national sensation since KC and the Sunshine Band. Once Pretty Tony’s Electro records under the group name Freestyle hit along with his production for female singer Debbie Deb, many TK refugees and other industry people aimed to recreate the success. The Freestyle music sub-genre that combines Electro beats with Latina singing arose from the popularity of Pretty Tony's sound and group name combined.
4-Sight Records: The first notable person to try and cash in on the success of Pretty Tony in Floirda was Billy Hines, owner of Royal Sounds record store in the Lauderhill Mall, Ft. Lauderdale. Having an active set of turntables in the record store for his son Adrian and young customers to try out new songs on over the P.A. caused quite a stir. Noticing how much excitement was generated, and how much money was being spent on these records, Billy formed the 4-Sight Records label, which was operated from within the store before making the transistion out of the record store business into being a full time record label. Hiring Frank Cornelius of the Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose family as his in-house producer, and using his son Adrian as creative advisor, he employed many of his customers as performers to front Electro, general rap records, and finally stumbling onto Bass music.
Cashing in on Miami Electro leads to Bass
Knights of the City: A major event that pooled talent during the Electro era was the production of a breakdance movie entitled Knights of the City (aka Cry of the City). Being the only cities to have rap music scenes at large in the early 1980's was New York, Los Angeles, and Miami, and LA and NYC already were featured in Breakin' and Beat Street respectively, Miami seemed the logical third location.
For the film's prodction, as many local breakdance crews were rounded up as possible, along with a few local music producers and artists. Among those were breakdance units such as The Amazing Wizards, who later became a Bass group signed to Joey Boy Records, and FBI Crew. The latter crew, along with session musician turned rap producer Amos Larkins II, cut the Proto-Bass track Rockin' It for Posse Records in 1984 as part of the film's soundtrack.
Despite the pooling of talent, Knights of the City ran into a slew of legal trouble, and all the big-named stars issued court orders to have their scenes removed from the movie, producing a very low quality b-flick. However, it left behind one of the earliest Miami produced songs to sustain the Roland TR-808 kickdrum. Henry Stone took note of Amos's production skills and provided an outlet for him by creating record labels such as On Records and Prime Choice Records to be manufactured and distributed under the Sunnyview Records/Roulette Records umbrella to a local market.
Miami Vice: The failure of the movie was quickly eclipsed by the success of the TV show Miami Vice, which also pooled some local talent. Notably, Amos Larkins II again finds himself connected to this project producing the track "Vice Vice Vice" for The Devastaing MC's in 1985.
The Official Start: 1st Wave Bass
First Wave Bass ranges from 1985-1987, and is marked by its minimal production values due to limited technology. Its attitudes range from somewhat naive to suppressed giddiness about purposefully breaking taboo subject matter (typically sexual). Early songs often followed the rap trend of co-opting melodies from television theme songs combined with bragadocious lyrics, but this was eclipsed lyrically with lines about clubbing, bass itself, or sexual antics. Musically, it changed by adopting a palette dominated by uptempo raw beats and a plethora of DJ scratching. The tempos of First Wave Bass began near 100 beats per minute, and rose to roughly 125 beats per minute.
Bass Rock Express: After Rick Rubin’s bass heavy production of LL Cool J's remake of Rock the Bells became of top 40 hit in 1985, Amos Larkins II also began making mid-tempo bass heavy rap tracks for local rappers such as Double Duce, Mighty Rock, and Prime Choice for Henry Stone. This was timed perfectly as Florida’s demand for Electro began drying up. The first time everything aligned and the genre officially formed was when Billy Hines allowed his son Adrian (MC ADE) to front his own record entitled Bass Rock Express. The track was produced by Amos Larkins II, and was the first to address Bass as the lyrical topic, marking a transition for 4-Sight Records into Bass music (despite the song's somewhat outdated Electro overtones).
Luke Skyywalker Records, 2 Live Crew, and X-rated lyrics: A concert promoter and club owner who called himself Luke Skyywalker took notice of a California based group named 2 Live Crew who had a very much in demand bass heavy record in Florida entitled 2 Live (commonly referred to as Beat Box). Luke brought the group to South Floirda to perform the two songs they had recorded, and after returing home to California, they took inventory of their experience in Florida, recording a tribute song to the Sunshine State entitled Throw the D. Luke now acting as the group's manager decided to try and get the record signed in Florida where it would have more pull. One of his first stops was Henry Stone. Luke assumed he had a way in with Henry since the track Ghetto Jump by Krush II and Amos Larkins II was inspired by the activity in Luke's Pac-Jam teen club, but Henry turned Luke's offer down. Furious, Luke decided to start Luke Skyywalker Records with the sole intention to release this record. Upon immediate success, the group packed their bags and moved to Miami. With Throw the D becoming a local sensation, the crowd's response to the song was to dance as X-rated as possible, so the group began to work that observation back into their songs, adding fuel to the fire that was their grassroots promotion (this is when Luke officially joined the group as the stage "hype man", although he did no rapping, nor production). The result was the first X-rated Miami Bass act, which offered something of an identity and a stigma for the genre.
Joey Boy Records: With Sherman Nealey’s and Pretty Tony’s conviction on drug dealing arriving, this left side men such as record promoter Allen Johnston and co-producer Calvin Mills without immediate jobs, so Joey Armada Jr., son of the owner of Carribean Record Manufacturing, employed these two men foudning Joey Boy Records to release Bass music for groups such as M 4-Sers, Bass Patrol, Miami Boys, and The Dogs (often reusing these group names for new artists when the old ones left the company).
Hot Productions: With Morris Levy being convicted of extortion, he left the country (dying shortly after) which allowed Henry Stone to form a new label with his protégé Paul Klein focusing on this new street music. Hiring former trumpet player for the Disco-Funk band Instant Funk Larry Davis as the in-house producer, Hot Productions was formed, often to produce Bass groups such as L'Trimm, and release outside work of groups such as Gucci Crew II. Being Mo Levy's Roulette Records owned Henry's TK catalog, and Mo was out of commission, Henry augmented the sales of these "street records" by reissuing much of the TK catalog until its acquisition by Rhino Records in 1989.
Bass Station Records: Luke’s rival Noberto “Candyman” Morales of the Triple M DJ's crew and Bass Station club countered Luke’s move into the record world by employing his star DJ Eric G to produce tracks for his Bass Station Records. Shortly after, Candyman's drug dealing and violent parties caught up with him as he was shot dead in 1987. Eric G and the Bass Station Records catalog transferred to Edward Meriwether's Suntown Records, who rereleased edited versions of hits later that year, keeping them in the limelight.
Pandisc Records: By 1987, Bo Crane had realized the potential of DXJ and his Maggotron alias, banking on Electro Bass records to be released on Pandisc Records, marking a transition for Bo’s creative direction. Bo also took control of Pretty Tony's career after he was released from jail, gaining control of Tony's back catalog in return; however, Tony failed to update his sound and poduced no notable hits afterwards.
Mobile DJ Crews: The success of many records in South Florida spanning from the end of Disco until very recently was the result of open air mobile DJ crews such as Jam Pony Express, We Down Express, Triple M DJ's, and The Ghetto Style DJ’s. Crews such as these battled to gain the largest audience with their sound systems, and with the invention of Bass records, had new ammo for their virtual calling cards. To ensure play from these crews, new music groups continued the trend of adding bass to their music, and the "one hand washes the other" mentality helped the genre grow. Many of these crews became acts themselves: We Down Express became Afro-Rican, Triple M DJ's became The Worse'em Crew, Ghetto Style DJ's was the backbone of Luke Skyywalker Records grassroots promotions, and Jam Pony Express's legendary status earned from their mixtapes forced them to release a "proper" album in the mid-1990's.
Electro Bass
Even though many felt Electro was an outdated mode in the mid-1980's, some artists felt most comfortable pulling from the palette of Kraftwerk and using a Vocoder for vocals, although now, they began fusing it with Bass music. Between DXJ’s quirky body of work and the presistance of Dynamix II, Florida did manage to sustain and Electro Bass subgenre that outlasted all other trends in Miami Bass; this may've led to the general public's assumption that Miami Bass equates to Electro. However, California's Electro Bass scene may've contributed more artists within a short stretch of time.
Between 1986 and 1988, Los Angeles was part of the Miami Bass scene, which made sense being both grew out of the Electro era and shared vehicles for marketing. Whereas artists such as Rodney O-Joe Cooley followed the trend of mid-tempo bass heavy rap songs in 1986 and 1987, several California based producers did not let go of the Electro pastiche so easily. Techno-Hop Records and Techno-Kut Records hosted producers such as Arabian Prince and DJ Unknown, carrying on the Electro tradition of Egyptian Lover while grafting modern Bass techniques onto the music. Oddly, Gangsta rap grew out of California's Electro Bass scene with Ice T's 1986 release of 6 in the Mornin' on Techno-Hop Records, and N.W.A.'s/Eazy E's copycat song Boyz in the Hood in 1987. This began a new direction for the West Coast, and Electro Bass was effectivly shutdown when N.W.A. acquired a major-label deal in 1988.
Floridian Electro Bass soldiered on and eventually fused itself with the Florida breaks community near the end of the 1990's, where it continues to thrive in a Rave like setting rather than near its Hip-Hop roots.
2nd Wave Bass
Second Wave Bass is characterized by its tempo of 125-130 beats per minute, the expansion of turntablism, its use of sampled loops, and its shedding of outside influences of other forms of Hip-Hop. It also began flirting with forms of House Music, especially Hip house, and shared the market with Freestyle music. It ranges from 1988-1991.
Tonal Bass: E-mu products were a big part of Miami Bass's production arsenal. In the early days of Bass production, the Roland TR-808 drum machine was augmented by E-mu's Emulator II keyboard, but when Eric G began using E-mu's SP1200 drum sampler instead of the Roland TR-808 in 1987, things began to change by sampling the 808 kick drum and playing it tonally. His production of Dynamix II's Just Give the DJ a Break set a new trend with multi-tonal bass sounds, followed quickly by Afro-Rican's Give it All You Got (Doggy Style) merging the SP1200 multi-tonal sound with a faster dance tempo and a little implied smut courtesy of 2 Live Crew's inspiration.
Looped samples: After the release of E-mu's SP1200, rap music producers quickly learned that by speeding up records while sampling them, you can slow the sample back down, and effectivly "trick" the sampler into having more sampling time. This technique altered all of rap music by allowing for more loops, utilizing the "space" within the music to its fillest potential. Miami forged a very specific sound as drums from the Roland TR-808 drum machine were coupled with sample loops and SP1200 stock sounds.
There were two albums to first to trail blaze this new sound in 1988: Gigolo Tony’s Ain’t it Good to Ya produced by The Whiz Kids for 4-Sight Records, and Beatmaster Clay D’s You Be You and I Be Me produced by Clay D and DJ Magic Mike for Vision Records. Being so new in sonic quality, neither album sold remarkably well. In fact, Billy Hines reported well more than 75% of the pre-ordered albums of Gigolo Tony’s to be returned; however, by 1989, the audience had embraced the new sound, and the following albums by these producers sold remarkably well. MC ADE’s second album How Much Can You Take is said to have saved 4-Sight Records, and DJ Magic Mike’s solo debut is seen as the album that reshaped the genre.
Edits: Being all recorded music at this time was recorded onto tape, this allowed for tape manipuation to become part of post-production process of making records. Editing became popular during the Disco days as a way to alter the arrangements of songs to ease the job of club DJ's, and by the 1980's, it changed just from rearranging songs to turntablism type tricks. These techniques were made popular by the NYC scene's Chep Nunez and The Latin Rascals, but Miami began doring these tape tricks as part of the production process also, making great use of crews such as The Whiz Kids and The Blade Runners.
Creative peak: The peak of the Second Wave sound arrived when Danny D’s group Boys from the Bottom broke through with a national hit picked up by the major label Atlantic Records while teaming with localk radio personality DJ Laz, and a small West Palm Beach label named Cut it Up Def Records employed two new DJ/producers named DJ Jealous J and DJ Jock D to give DJ Magic Mike a run for his money creatively.
National attention: The most visible group during the second wave was again 2 Live Crew as their 1989 album As Nasty as They Wanna Be was marked by massive touring and numerous court battles over charges of obscenity.
Car Audio Bass: A Parallel Market
Car Audio Bass is marked by its loss of syncopated rhythms, its sterile sound, and its over-the-top gimmicks. It is aimed at a mostly suburban clientele who patron custom car shows. Although it began during the second wave of Bass in 1989, it continued until the 2000's. During the first wave when the phenomenon of Bass was recognized, it was seen equally as something for clubs and for cars, but during the second wave, some producers saw to make two separate types of Bass music for each purpose.
Feel the Bass: In 1989, DJ Magic Mike created an a track entitled Feel the Bass (Speaker Terror Upper) on his debut album that stripped all extraneous elements away sonically and left a very basic groove to accessorize the slow moving bass track.
Techmaster PEB defines the car audio market and marketing: The response to Mike's Feel the Bass resulted in many producers taking the cue to create a whole new sub-genre based on this principle. Some acts such as DJ Fury and Tampa Bay’s Quad Force mimicked Mike’s album by merging club songs and car audio songs onto one album, but it was fellow Tampa area producer Techmaster P.E.B. who noticed the need for albums aimed strictly at the car market. After one failed album released in 1990 entitled It Came from Outer Bass, he struck gold when his 1991 album Bass Computer was marketed directly to car show attendees. From this point, the industry maintained two parallel markets with groups often creating aliases to tap both.
Pandisc Records finds its niche: After years of faltering and a brief stint with Electro Bass, Pandisc Records successfully reconfigured into a "flavor of the month" outfit, rather than following other labels' lead of hiring one creative source. Although they released a surplus of Second Wave Bass albums, they kicked into an even higher gear with Car Audio Bass in the mid-1990's. Pandisc went so far as to give a manufacturing and distribution deal to their engineer Neil Case to release Car Audio Bass CD's on his Bass Mekanik imprint in addition to their already abundant supply. Whereas all other Miami Bass labels closed shop eventually, Pandisc remains open due to their approach.
Car shows begin to supply themselves: Eventually, even car audio accesory manufacturers such as Orion Car Audio began to market Car Audio Bass CD's produced by in-house producers such as DJ Billy-E under a slew of aliases.
Gimmicks and competition: Promoting at car shows was effective as this cottage-industry cut out the middle man and marketed CD's directly to their audience. The word-of-mouth promotion resulted in massive sales of CD's in stores, but it also quickly flooded the market with product. As a result, the competition at the car shows to promote became fierce, and labels relied heavily on new gimmicks from the producers to quickly catch the attention of car show attendees. One ubiquitous gimmick was to have an "scientific" sounding narrator describing frequencies and their effects. This gimmick was lifted from the sample-based intro to DJ Magic Mike's 1990 2nd Wave album Bass is the Name of the Game, although it served a different purpose in that context.
Evolution: Eventually, portions of the Car Audio Bass scene would latch onto the Florida breaks sound (presumably due to Pandisc Records simultaneous promotion both sub-genres), but has also unsuccessfully flirted with most trends of electronic dance music including the obvious choice of Drum and Bass.
From 3rd Wave Booty Bass to Crunk
Third Wave Bass is usually referred to simply as "booty music". It is discernible due to its removal of turntablism, its extreme incresed tempo, and its over-annunciation of the Southern drawl. Tempos range from 135 beats per minute to 160 beats per minute, and the sub-genre lasted from 1992 through the the early 2000's, giving way to a new form of music altogether billed as Crunk.
The end of 2 Live Crew: In 1991, Luke’s out in front personality and underhanded dealings had caught up to him. He was forced by George Lucas to drop the Skyywalker moniker, which he never saught permission to use. Due to Mr. Mixx's early departure from the group, 2 Live Crew’s fourth album failed to make much of an imprint outside its initial single (Pop that Coochie), and the group began to break up over disagreements on how to handle Luke’s exposed short changing. Label mate MC Shy D effectively sued Luke for an overwhelming amount of money for this very same reason. Now Luke was without Mr. Mixx as in-house producer, and his second-string producers known as The O.D.S. never had the hit making track record that Mr. Mixx had. Yet, what seemed to be the end actually created a whole new beginning.
Doo Doo Brown booty: Suntown Records failed to recognize where their talent with their signed artist/producer Kenneth "Devastator" Terry. Luke saw his potential and brought Devastator in to produce a solo track for Luke entitled I Wanna Rock (Doo Doo Brown) in late 1991. The high energy dense song upped the tempo from 125 beats per minute to over 140 beats per minute, while Luke himself performed nothing more than call and response vocals rather than actual rapping. This massive club hit structured the template that eventually redefined the purpose of Miami Bass. When Luke reemployed Kenneth "Devastator" Terry in 1992 to produce Poison Clan’s Shake Watch Mama Gave Ya, the new fate of Bass music was sealed; Miami Bass was now fuel for booty dancing competitions.
The commercial height signaled the end: During this era, Miami Bass found mainstream success, which was a blessing and a curse. Tracks such as Tag Team’s “Whoomp, There It Is”, 69 Boyz’ Tootsie Roll, Freak Nasty's Da Dip, and Quad City DJ’s C’Mon Ride the Train all made top 40 charts, but onlookers saw these as guilty pleasures at best, and those who dug beneath the surface were finding the genre at it’s lowest point in terms of quality. Each time the genre seemed to become stale throughout the 1990’s, the producers did nothing more than up the tempo another 5 beats per minute, not even changing the palette of samples used; they entered a race with themselves. By this time, Atlanta based artists were no longer traveling to Florida to score record deals, but rather were becoming very self-sufficient business-wise, and creativly, they added more Southern drawl to the rapper’s voices.
Bass becomes Crunk: By the end of the 1990’s, the South in general had felt that Bass could offer nothing new. Whereas the term “crunk” was used often in Bass music as a state of mind, Atlanta based artists began taking the term to define themselves as a whole. Eventually, the tempo burst from 160 beats per minute back down to the 100 beats per minute the genre started at, but with a new 00’s hard attitude, and a lack of samples due to new issues with sample clearance. The term Crunk now became the genre’s name, and the sound had changed 100% seemingly overnight.
Booty Music Revival vs. Florida Breaks
The term "booty music" once referred specifically to Miami Bass's latter days, and became retroactive to its early days once that era of it was discovered outside of its immediate region. The perceived smut became an inspiration to producers of newer dance music genres, and as they grafted this attitude onto their productions, Miami Bass suddenly became lumped with these genres. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Floridian producers mostly abandoned the "booty" aspects of the music, usually opting for either Dirty South or Florida breaks/Electro Bass (the artist's race is often the deciding factor in this decision).
Non-Miami-Bass booty music: As Crunk took control of a large portion of mainstream Hip-Hop, and the post-rave European electronic dance music climate co-opted the American ghetto created House Music and Techno genres, new urban producers from Chicago, Baltimore, and Detroit looked back on not only their own innovations of House and Techno, but Miami Bass’s legacy at large. Mixing these together with global electronic dance music's use of sped up breakbeats, they created genres such as Ghetto House, Ghettotech, and Baltimore Club. However, it is a misconception that these share much in common with Miami Bass. These new genres maintain the repetitive nature of post-rave global electronic dance music, whereas Miami Bass never intended to be anything more than a brand of rap music. Furthermore, the “booty” aspects of Miami Bass only represent a fraction of the actual music, whereas it defines these new school genres in total.
Is Florida Breaks Miami Bass?: In contrast to the Ghettotech/Ghetto House trends, electronic dance music producers currently in Florida are still living out rave-era philosophies while stating the creed that Miami Bass is its parent genre. The irony is Florida breaks takes its structure from global electronic dance music such as early 1990’s British breakbeat hardcore and the soundscapes of Trance Music more than Miami Bass itself. The Florida breaks sub-genre is often referred to as Electro-Breaks by its fans despite having no apparent Electro characteristics. Some imply this is a way to align itself more with Miami Bass's legacy.
Funk Carioca/Proibidao
The Bass sub-genre newest to the gloabl radar that comes closest to the Miami Bass sound is the Brazilian offshoot known as Funk Carioca (or simply "Funk", when speaking to Brazilians).
When Brazilian record suppliers began coming to the United States in the 1970's to buy Black Music for Brazilian DJ's, they would target stores that sold actual American Funk records. As they continued to support the same hotspots over time, they never took note that American Black Music had evolved away from Funk into new genre names such as Rap or Electro. Being Miami was one of the most southern points in the U.S., it was a popular place to obtain records for Brazil, and therefore, Miami Bass greatly entered the canon of imported Black music. DJ Nazz is one of the main suppliers credited with bringing Miami Bass records home to Brazil while still referring to them as American "Funk" records, which is how Bass became known as Funk there.
Miami Bass proved to be one of the most successful of the American Black music imported to Brazil in recent times, and home producers began mimicking it dating back to the late 1980's. However, it was only a localized phenomenon until its discovery by foreign labels in the 2000's. Those labels began compiling this music for the outside world, making it a new global trend. Oddly, compilers chose the term Baile funk to represent the genre, which is a mistranslation. Baile funk in the Brazilian Bass community actually means "the party at which Bass music is played". One recent compilation is entitled Favela Booty Beats, which is striking as the music is more political than sexual, say many who speak Portuguese (again illustrating the the misconception in the Western world that Miami Bass's aesthetics equates to sexual lyrics). Ironically, most Brazilian Bass songs are built on the instrumental to a West Coast Electro Bass track entitled 808 Volt (Beatapella Mix) by DJ Battery Brain, rather than pulling directly from Miami. This of course shows the result of joint marketing between Los Angeles and Miami in the late 1980's.
In Brazil, fans have recently taken to calling their brand of Bass "Proibidao", which translates to "prohibited". It is seen as an especially volatile form of music in the eyes of the Brazilian government, and reportedly, arrests have been made just for possessing CD's of Funk/Brazilian Bass music.
The Miami Bass History Project
In 2000, a former Miami Bass artist turned music historian dubbed PappaWheelie took note of how Miami Bass was considered the bastard child of Hip-Hop throughout its existence, and how it had become virtually forgotten more recently. He setup a Yahoo Group entitled Miami Bass History in an attempt to document the releases, artists, and evolution of the genre. After a brief lull in interest from outsiders, the group went on to amass record collectors, followed by artists and producers, and eventually rounding up much of the industry itself.
PappaWheelie sees his role as something similar to Alan Lomax's role with American Folk music; documenting a regional culture that flew under the mainstream’s radar for both preservation and to show the origins of modern music. This will reportedly result in a long overdue book that would offer the story for the posterity of electronic dance music and Hip-Hop’s history.
The Players
External links
- Yahoo Group devoted to chronicling the evolution & formation of Miami bass
| Culture | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| History | |||||||||||||||
| Subgenres |
| ||||||||||||||
| Fusion genres |
| ||||||||||||||
| Derivatives |
| ||||||||||||||
| Regional scenes |
| ||||||||||||||
| Other topics | |||||||||||||||
