Urban Music (Urban Contemporary Music)Urban music, also commonly called urban contemporary music, is an aggregate of musical genres that developed in the 1970s in the United States as a form of radio programming musical. The category of programming gained particular popularity in the 1980s and 1990s as an alternative to both African-American-oriented stations that featured hard soul, funk, hiphop, and rap material, and to mainstream, white-oriented popular music radio programming that featured only a small number of African-American artists, many of whom had gained mainstream acceptance through exposure on the music video channel MTV. DJ Frankie Crocker is commonly believed to have pioneered this approach through his work as a music programmer for Manhattan-based radio station WLIB-FM, which began broadcasting in 1974. His early programming combined established R&B material with Disco's flourishing style and later continued. to include elements of rap, hip hop and reggae, both in general programming and in niche slots. This approach has proven to be very effective among radio audiences and has been ...