Since the golden age of hip-hop in the late 1980s, producers have dominated urban music, but few have actually been credited with creating an entire subgenre.
Teddy Riley didn’t coin the term “new-jack swing,” but he is widely acknowledged as the genre’s inventor, mainly by helping genuine R&B singers utilize the intense machine-made funk rhythms popularized by rap artists. Riley formed the seminal new-jack swing group, Guy, in Harlem, New York in 1987, but quickly became more famous as a producer. He reached his peak in this role with Michael Jackson’s 1991 album, “Dangerous,” which sold 30 million copies worldwide.
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