New jack swing or
swingbeat is a
fusion genre spearheaded by
Teddy Riley and
Bernard Belle that became popular from the late 1980s into the early 1990s. Its influence, along with
hip hop, seeped into
pop culture and was the definitive sound of the inventive black New York club scene. It fuses the rhythms,
samples, and production techniques of
hip hop and
dance-pop with the
urban contemporary sound of
R&B. The new jack swing style developed as many previous music styles did, by combining elements of older styles with newer sensibilities. It used R&B style vocals sung over hip hop and dance-pop style influenced instrumentation. The sound of new jack swing comes from the hip hop "swing" beats created by
drum machine, and hardware samplers, which was popular during the
Golden Age of Hip Hop, with
contemporary R&B style singing.