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 under form of musical radio programming. The programming category gained popularity in the 1980s and 1990s as an alternative to African-American-oriented stations that featured hard soul, funk, hiphop and rap material and to white-oriented mainstream popular music radio programs, which only presented a small number. of African-American artists, many of whom gained mainstream acceptance through their exposure on the music video channel MTV. DJ Frankie Crocker is generally considered 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 shows combined material R&B established with the emerging style of Disco and then continued. to include elements of rap, hip hop and reggae, both in general programming and in niche slots. This approach has proven very successful with radio audiences and has been ...