It’s no secret that by now Hip Hop has influenced every kind of popular songwriting that can be called contemporary, and that songwriting cannot and will not never go back to the way it was pre-Hip Hop.

Good new songs are still being written all the time in traditional styles. But songwriting, like everything else, like it or not, inexorably moves into the future. Hip Hop now has the kind of sway over songwriting that Rock and ‘Singer-Songwriter’ styles had for decades in the last third of the 20th century (and, previous to Rock and Roll, that the Great American Songbook’ style had). Hip Hop’s influence is now felt in every area of new popular music – from Broadway to Country and everything in between.

The place in current songwriting where Hip Hop’s influence is felt most significantly is in lyrics and melody – it has complicated and to some extent had a liberating effect on both. It’s influence on harmony has been mostly in the opposite direction – towards simplification.

Rap has had a phenomenally expansive influence on words in songs – with virtuoso rappers stretching the lines until they’re almost continuous, pausing only when a breath is absolutely necessary (and when recording, it really never is), almost like bebop soloists, but with words. The expansion has also affected rhymes in a big way. Words that our songwriting ancestors would have never even considered to be a rhyme – even a bad rhyme – are now commonplace.

Yes, this freedom, like any, has created a lot of sloppiness and lazy lyrics, but it’s also dramatically expanded the palette for good lyricists – it’s upped the ante, so to speak. The great rappers have created lyrics that for sheer creativity and expressiveness rival those of any of the greatest lyricists in popular music history.

These tumbling words, when they’re sung and not rapped, require unconventional melodies, and Hip Hop has had a lot of influence in melody too. In much (not all) songwriting of the 20th century, particularly in the ‘Rock era’, the melody’s rhythm is often fairly predictable. In a Verse, for instance, one line tends to start in pretty much the same place in the bar as the previous one.

Not in 21st century songwriting. The melody lines move all over the place, with phrases jumping across bar lines, beginning and ending in unpredictable places. Often the unpredictable words dictate the melodic structure, not vice versa as it was before.

I’m not saying this has ‘improved’ songwriting, any more than Lennon and McCartney ‘improved’ on Irving Berlin or Rodgers and Hart. But after a while things have to change or utter staleness settles in. That’s what’s happened here… again.

As Exhibit A… Some of the most traditional and ‘conventional’ (and often excellent) songwriting has in recent decades been in Country music (not to mention, vis a vis Hip Hop, that Country music is whiter – although appreciation of Country is certainly not limited to any racial or ethnic group). But even Country is making room for Hip Hop – and I’m certain this trend will continue.

I’ll cite two examples, among many (listen below): Luke Bryan’s 2013 hit ’That’s My Kind Of Night’ (Davidson, DeStefano, Gorley) is in some ways a conventional Country/Rock song; certainly the lyric’s themes are very familiar. But listen to how the melody lines are stretched out, with only brief pauses – the next line almost always jumps right in as soon as the previous one is finished. And how the form itself is stretched – the Chorus is long. And the production is affected too – just check out the Intro.

A much more extreme example is Sam Hunt’s 2015 ‘Breakup In A Small Town’ (Hunt, Z. Crowell, McAnally). The Verse and Bridge are very Drake-like – in mood, in phrasing, in the way the speaking and singing are intermingled, even in the lyric’s themes of obsession and jealousy. The Chorus, in a straight-up commercial move, is a conventional Country/Rock Chorus that’s all singing.

I embrace change in Songwriting; it means the art and the craft is still alive, growing and evolving. As I say in my workshops – in every way but financially, it’s a great time to be a songwriter.

Please let me know your thoughts in the Comments section below:

And please share on facebook etc. by clicking the tabs under the video 

Thanks to Ilina Simeonova for help with this post.