Freestyle music
| Freestyle music | |
|---|---|
| Other names | Freestyle, Latin freestyle, Latin hip hop, Latin rap |
| Stylistic origins | |
| Cultural origins | Early 1980s, United States: New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Miami (mostly by Hispanic Americans and Italian Americans) |
| Derivative forms | NYC hard house |
| Regional scenes | |
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| Other topics | |
Freestyle music, also known as freestyle, Latin freestyle or Latin hip-hop, and sometimes Latin rap is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in the New York metropolitan area, Philadelphia, and Miami, primarily among Puerto Rican Americans and Italian Americans.
An important precursor to freestyle is 1982's "Planet Rock" by Afrika Bambaataa & Soul Sonic Force. Shannon's 1983 hit "Let the Music Play" is often considered the first freestyle song and the first major song recorded by a Latin American artist is "Please Don't Go" by Nayobe from 1984. From there, freestyle gained a large presence in American clubs, especially in New York and Miami. Radio airplay followed in the mid-1980s.
Performers such as Exposé, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, Stevie B and Sweet Sensation gained mainstream chart success with the genre in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but its popularity largely faded by the end of the decade. Both classic and newer freestyle output remain popular as a niche genre in Brazil (where it is an influence on funk carioca), Germany and Canada.