I’ll agree that Guy made it a thing but Keith Sweat dropped before Guy did. What made NJS what it was was the fact that it was production that could be both rapped and sung over.
Nobody was rhyming over Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis production
History[edit]
A collaboration between former members of
Minneapolis music group
The Time,
Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and
Janet Jackson originated the style that came to be known as new jack swing with Jackson's third studio album,
Control (1986). Jam and Lewis used similar influences with hip-hop influenced drums with smoother R&B stylings in the production. Though Jackson had previously been popular in R&B music,
Control established her crossover appeal in the
popular music market. Musicologist Richard J. Ripani PhD, author of
The New Blue Music: Changes in Rhythm & Blues, 1950–1999 (2006), observed that the album was one of the first successful records to influence the rise of new jack swing by creating a fusion of R&B, rap, funk, disco and synthesized percussion.
[5] The new jack swing sound is particularly evident in the second single, "
Nasty".
[6] The success of
Control, according to Ripani, bridged the gap between R&B and rap music.
[5] He asserts that "since Jackson's album was released in 1986 and was hugely successful, it is not unreasonable to assume that it had at least some impact on the new jack swing creations of Teddy Riley."
[5] Mantronix's early records in the mid-1980s also had new jack elements.
[7]
The term "new jack swing" was coined in an October 18, 1987
Village Voice profile of Teddy Riley by
Barry Michael Cooper.
[8] "New Jack" was a slang term (meaning ~'Johnny-come-lately'
[9]) used in a song by
Grandmaster Caz of the
Cold Crush Brothers, and "swing" was intended by Cooper to draw an "analogy between the music played at the
speakeasies of F. Scott Fitzgerald's time to the
crackhouses of Teddy Riley's time."
[10]Teddy Riley's original name for the music was 'sophisticated bubblegun music'.*
The term "new jack swing" describes the sound produced and
engineered by
R&B/hip hop artist and producer
Teddy Riley. Riley is an American
R&B and
hip hop singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. He led the band
Guy in the late 1980s and
Blackstreet in the 1990s. Riley said, "I define the term [new jack swing] as a new kid on the block who's swinging it."
[11] The defining feature of Riley's music was the introduction of swingbeats, "a rhythmic pattern using offbeat accented 16th note triplets."
Music website VH1.com notes that while in the 2000s, "hip-hop and R&B are kissing cousins," in the early 1980s, "the two genres were seldom mentioned in the same breath." However, in the late 1980s, "during the era of
high-top fades, and
parachute pants, producer Teddy Riley and label boss
Andre Harrell successfully fused and marketed the two sounds in a sexy, exclamatory music that critics termed new jack swing. It sparked a revolution." Riley stated that before new jack swing, "Rappers and singers didn't want anything to do with one another," because "Singers were soft, rappers were street." Riley's new style blended "sweet melody and big beats."
[12] The sensibilities of Riley's fusion of the styles would forever change pop music/hip-hop music pairing and was further popularized with
Bad Boy's dominance of the late '90s through much of the same techniques. Riley, a 19-year-old kid from Harlem, quickly became an A-list producer and commanded big fees to add his sound to major artist projects. The aesthetic of the culture also spread to mainstream white audiences through popular groups such as
New Kids on the Block.
