In music, especially western popular music, a bridge is a contrasting section which also prepares for the return of the original material section. The bridge may be the third eight-bar phrase in a thirty-two-bar form (the B in AABA), or it may be used more loosely in verse-chorus form, or, in a compound AABA form, used as a contrast to a full AABA section.

The term comes from a German word for bridge, "Steg", used by the Meistersingers of the 15th to 18th century to describe a transitional section in medieval bar form. The German term became widely known in 1920's Germany through musicologist Alfred Lorentz and his exhaustive studies of Richard Wagner's adaptations of bar form in his popular 19th century neo-medieval operas. The term entered the English lexicon in the 1930's as its translated guise "bridge" via composers fleeing Nazi Germany who, finding employment in Hollywood and on Broadway, used the term to describe similarly transitional sections in the American popular music they were now writing.

Andre L. Adams (born March 11, 1970), better known by his stage name Andre Nickatina, is an American rapper from San Francisco, California. He previously performed under the stage name Dre Dog.

Andre Adams was born on March 11, 1970 in San Francisco, and grew up in the city's Fillmore District. He attended the Galileo Academy of Science and Technology but dropped out; he claims to have had a D average.

He released two albums under the stage name Dre Dog: The New Jim Jones in 1993 and I Hate You With a Passion in 1995. I Hate You With a Passion peaked at #79 on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and #3 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart. In 1997, Adams changed his stage name to Andre Nickatina, and released the albums: Cocaine Raps under his own label, Filmoe Coleman Records and Raven in My Eyes, which was released under the Bay Area Independent Rap Label Dogday Records. Unlike his albums released under the name Dre Dog, Cocaine Raps had deeper production values [First Collaborations with Producer Nick Peace]. The album Raven in My Eyes was noted for its production quality and songs that combine "sequencers and keyboards that buzz and whine" with live instrumentation. That year, he founded his own record label, Filmoe Coleman Records. Nickatina explained in an interview with Strivin magazine that his name change was "for the better" and that he raps because he feels that he is talented enough to do so but not for the sake of popularity.