Contemporary RnB:
Artists such as Drake and Beyonce were huge, and still are, in this genre. Drake begun his music career in 2016 with his debut mix tape “Room For Improvement”. Before his music career, he was an actor. At the 2017 Billboard Award Shows, he earned himself 13 Billboards in just one night! His 3rd mix tape, from 2009, “So Far Gone”, held several singles that were certified gold. This got him mainstream very quickly. His album “Thank Me Later” gained him a spot at Billboard number 1, in 2010, and became the top selling debut album for any artist at the time. Alongside his incredibly successful music career, Drake also invented the work “YOLO” in 2017, which is still a popular word today. In 2020, he also gave away a million dollars during his music video “God’s Plan”.
Beyonce was also one for creating words as she got “Bootylicious” added to the English Oxford Dictionary after her hit single with Destiny’s Child. Her debut album, “Dangerously In Love”, was released in 2003 and it sold over 11 million copies, earning itself 5 Grammy’s! Her single “Single Ladies” became an overnight sensation with artists like Adam Samberg and Justin Timberlake mimicking the choreography.
Fashion took a slight turn from 90’s tie-dye and towards more solid colors, like white and pink. Belly tops and low-waist jeans were very popular, alongside some people sticking to the baggy clothes. RnB elements consisted of tight drum programming,lush disco influencing string sounds, slick production techniques, lush vocal arrangements with close harmonies and hip-hop influences. Overall, not too different to 90’s music but the 2000’s music were more flexible instead of just sticking to one sound, like they’d be influenced by hip-hop but also disco, they’d incorporate and mix stuff up to create new sounds.
Rap:
Artists started being more than just artists, like how Eminem starred in 8 Mile, which was actually a film about him and his life. There were a lot of cross between genres, such as RnB and rap sounds were incredibly close in their elements of production etc.
Rappers tend to wear quite flashy jewelry, like gold chains and diamond rings, along with flashy clothes, like big and expensive clothing brands.
Grime and UK Garage was also introduced with Artists like Dizziee Rascal actually producing their sounds in their bedrooms.
Pop:
Just like now, pop was a very large and popular genre. There were many boy-bands, like NSYNC and Maroon 5, alongside having a heavy female presence in this genre with mainstream artists like Alicia Keys.
This genre mixed live bands with digital music for the development of sounds. For example, Avril Lavigne was big on having a live band but Lady Gaga often preferred digital production.
