As with all genres, there are theoretical characteristics that make music recognizable as hip-hop. And those characteristics can be isolated and applied to other genres to spice them up. Considering hip-hop has been the most popular genre for the last few years, if we want people to connect with our music, then there’s a lot we can learn from hip-hop’s secret formula.

As you’ve probably heard in the music news, hip-hop is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2023. In its 50 years, hip-hop has influenced almost every other genre. That fact inspired the idea behind our epic new Genre Project. In this ongoing series, we’ll hack different genres to reveal their secret formulas and how you can use those formulas to make better music in whatever genre you work in. So, if there’s a genre you want us to hack, drop us a comment.

And just a quick caveat. Genres are also recognizable by non-theoretical characteristics, like instrumentation, and even some non-musical characteristics, like culture. But, here at Hack Music Theory we focus exclusively on melody, harmony, and rhythm. Also, every genre’s characteristics have their roots in earlier genres. However, exploring a genre’s heritage is a rabbit hole! A fun one, but still, we’re not going down there.

Stay tuned for episode one coming soon, and be sure to bookmark our Genre Project page for upcoming PDFs.

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