The Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer was one of the first programmable drum machines ("TR" serving as an initialism for Transistor Rhythm). Introduced by the Roland Corporation in early 1980, it was originally manufactured for use as a tool for studio musicians to create demos. Like earlier Roland drum machines, it does not sound very much like a real drum kit. Indeed, because the TR-808 came out a few months after the Linn LM-1 (the first drum machine to use digital samples), professionals generally considered its sound inferior to sampling drum machines; a 1982 Keyboard Magazine review of the LinnDrum indirectly referred to the TR-808 as sounding like marching anteaters. However, the TR-808 cost US$1,195 upon its release, which was considerably more affordable than the US$5,000 LM-1.

Drum machines in general became an integral part of hip hop music as a cheap and simple way of producing a drum sound. The Roland TR-808 held specific appeal because of the ability of its bass drum sound to produce extremely low-frequency sounds. It also featured various unique artificial percussion sounds that characterized the TR-808: a deep bass kick drum, "tinny handclap sounds," “the ticky snare, the tishy hi-hats (open and closed) and the spacey cowbell.” The Roland TR-808 would eventually be used on more hit records than any other drum machine, and has thus attained an iconic status within the music industry. The machine's successor was the Roland TR-909.

Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. (April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984), better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye (he added the 'e' as a young man), was an acclaimed American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range, who achieved major success in the 1960s and 1970s as an artist for the Motown Records label. He was shot dead by his father on April 1, 1984.

Starting his career as a member of the doo-wop group The Moonglows in the late 1950s, he ventured into a solo career after the group disbanded in 1960, signing with Motown Records subsidiary, Tamla. He started off as a session drummer, but later ranked as the label's top-selling solo artist during the 1960s. He was crowned "The Prince of Motown" and "The Prince of Soul". because of solo hits such as "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)", "Ain't That Peculiar", "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," and his duet singles with singers such as Mary Wells and Tammi Terrell.

His work in the early- and mid-1970s included the albums, What's Going On, Let's Get It On, and I Want You, which helped influence the quiet storm, urban adult contemporary, and slow jam genres. After a self-imposed European exile in the early 1980s, Gaye returned on the 1982 Grammy-Award winning hit, "Sexual Healing" and the Midnight Love album before his death.

Greg Broussard (born August 31, 1963 in Los Angeles, California), better known by his stage name Egyptian Lover, is an American musician, vocalist, producer and DJ, and was an important part of the L.A. dance music and rap scene in the early 1980s.

The Egyptian Lover started out as a D.J. in Los Angeles with Uncle Jam's Army D.J.ing dances as large as the L.A. Sports Arena with 10,000 people. He began recording around Los Angeles in 1982 as a member of the Radio Crew, and also Uncle Jam's Army. In the early days of hip hop, albums were rare, so most of The Egyptian Lover's successful recordings were 12" singles. He would eventually release some of the earliest rap LPs, which was especially unique for being west-coast based, but they were less popular than his singles. But on the strength of containing an alternate mix of his most popular single "Egypt, Egypt", 1984's On the Nile was moderately successful. After a break in the early 1990s, Egyptian Lover returned in 1994 (see 1994 in music) with Back from the Tomb. His last full-length album in over ten years. In 2006 The Egyptian Lover recorded another new album "Platinum Pyramids".

Blake Baxter is an American techno musician, associated with the first wave of Detroit techno. Allmusic called him "perhaps the most underrated figure" of the early Detroit techno scene.

Baxter first began mixing records in the middle of the 1980s. Some of his first releases was recorded in Chicago on the label DJ International, which was latter remixed and released in Detroit on the record label KMS Records, KMS-011. also in Detroit He released music on the Underground Resistance label an EP 12 inch vinyl The Prince of Techno UR-06 in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and had several of his productions featured on the Techno: The New Dance Sound of Detroit compilation. Around 1989-92 he released three 12 inches records on Incognito Records.^{[citation needed]}

While touring in Germany in Berlin, he released One more time on Tresor records and "Brothers Gonna Work it Out on Logic records in Frankfurt a track based on Willie Hutch's 1973 eponymous release, which was later sampled by The Chemical Brothers. After returning to Detroit, he set up the labels Mix Records and Phat Joint and open a record store in downtown Detroit called Save the Vinyl from 1992 to 1999.^{[citation needed]}