Funk

Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid- to late 1960s when African American musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of soul music, jazz, and rhythm and blues (R&B). Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground. Funk songs are often based on an extended vamp on a single chord, distinguishing them from R&B and soul songs, which are built on complex chord progressions. Funk uses the same extended chords found in bebop jazz, such as minor chords with added sevenths and elevenths, or dominant seventh chords with altered ninths.

Like much African-inspired music, funk typically consists of a complex groove with rhythm instruments such as electric guitar, electric bass, Hammond organ, and drums playing interlocking rhythms. Funk bands sometimes have a horn section of several saxophones, trumpets, and in some cases, a trombone, which plays rhythmic "hits". Funk originated in the mid-1960s, with James Brown's development of a signature groove that emphasized the downbeat—with heavy emphasis on the first beat of every measure, funky bass lines, drum patterns, and syncopated guitar riffs. Other musical groups, including Sly & the Family Stone and Parliament-Funkadelic, soon began to adopt and develop Brown's innovations. While much of the written history of funk focuses on men, there have been notable funk women, including Chaka Khan, Labelle, Brides of Funkenstein, Klymaxx, Mother's Finest, and Betty Davis.

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Sound of...

Sound of... is an annual BBC poll of music critics and industry figures to find the most promising new music talent. It was first conducted by the BBC News website in 2003, and is now widely covered by the corporation's online, radio and TV outlets, as well as other media. A 15-strong longlist is published each December, with a ranked shortlist and annual winner announced the following January.

Winners

2003–09

2010–16

Notes

Sound of 2009

More than 130 critics, editors and broadcasters took part in the Sound of 2009 survey, which was won by electro-pop singer Little Boots. For the first time, a longlist of 15 acts from the 2009 poll was published by the BBC on 5 December 2008. The other five acts on the longlist were The Big Pink, Frankmusik, Master Shortie, Mumford & Sons and The Temper Trap.

Sound of 2010

The longlist for the Sound of 2010 poll was revealed on 7 December 2009. The acts nominated were Daisy Dares You, Delphic, Devlin, The Drums, Everything Everything, Giggs, Gold Panda, Ellie Goulding, Hurts, Joy Orbison, Marina and the Diamonds, Owl City, Rox, Stornoway and Two Door Cinema Club. On 8 January 2010, Ellie Goulding was announced as the winner. She has since gone to reach No. 1 with her debut album Lights.

Las Vegas

Las Vegas (/lɑːs ˈveɪɡəs/, also locally /lɑːs ˈvɛɡᵻs/; Spanish: [laz ˈβeɣas]) officially the City of Las Vegas and often known as simply Vegas, is a city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, the county seat of Clark County, and the city proper of the Las Vegas Valley. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city known primarily for gambling, shopping, fine dining and nightlife and is the leading financial and cultural center for Southern Nevada.

The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous for its mega casino–hotels and associated entertainment. A growing retirement and family city, Las Vegas is the 29th-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 603,488 at the 2013 United States Census Estimates. The 2013 population of the Las Vegas metropolitan area was 2,027,828. The city is one of the top three leading destinations in the United States for conventions, business, and meetings. In addition, the city's metropolitan area has more AAA Five Diamond hotels than any other city in the world, and is a global leader in the hospitality industry. Today, Las Vegas is one of the top tourist destinations in the world.

Hip hop

Hip hop or hip-hop is a sub-cultural movement that formed during the early 1970s by African-American and Puerto Rican youths residing in the South Bronx in New York City. It became popular outside of the African-American community in the late 1980s and by the 2000s became the most listened-to musical genre in the world. It is characterized by four distinct elements, all of which represent the different manifestations of the culture: rap music (oral), turntablism or DJing (aural), b-boying (physical) and graffiti art (visual). Even while it continues to develop globally in myriad styles, these four foundational elements provide coherence to hip hop culture. The term is often used in a restrictive fashion as synonymous only with the oral practice of rap music.

The origin of the hip hop culture stems from the block parties of the Ghetto Brothers, when they plugged in the amplifiers for their instruments and speakers into the lampposts on 163rd Street and Prospect Avenue and used music to break down racial barriers, and from DJ Kool Herc at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, where Herc mixed samples of existing records with his own shouts to the crowd and dancers. Kool Herc is credited as the "father" of hip hop. DJ Afrika Bambaataa of the hip hop collective Zulu Nation outlined the pillars of hip hop culture, to which he coined the terms: MCing or "Emceein", DJing or "Deejayin", B-boying and graffiti writing or "Aerosol Writin".