Teddy Riley

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Teddy Riley is an American producer, musician and singer from Harlem in New York. He was born in 1967 and was already active as a teenager as a producer and keyboard player. In the late 1980s he devised a sound that came to be called new jack swing. In it the hard, sampled beats of hip hop came together with the vocals and harmonies of R&B. For this he worked with a drum machine and synthesizers, and in doing so supplied the blueprint for much Black pop music of that time.

Music and breakthrough

With his group Guy he released the self-titled debut album in 1988. He also produced for other artists, including Bobby Brown, and later worked with Michael Jackson on the album Dangerous from 1991. In the 1990s he founded Blackstreet, a vocal group that in 1996 made the hit No Diggity with Dr. Dre.

Influence

Riley showed how close hip hop and R&B could come to one another. What he did in the late 1980s then simply became the standard way of making a pop record: a solid beat under a sung melody, with room for a rapper. For a production like his, the studio is just as important as the stage.

Listening

In School of Rock

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Mentioned in other articles

• New jack swing GenreIn the late 1980s, the producer Teddy Riley in New York combined the singing of R&B with the beats of hip hop: new jack swing.