{"id":6991,"date":"2022-01-27T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-27T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mixxed.com\/blog\/?p=6991"},"modified":"2022-09-22T09:08:20","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T09:08:20","slug":"history-of-lo-fi-how-did-lo-fi-hip-hop-take-center-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/create.routenote.com\/blog\/history-of-lo-fi-how-did-lo-fi-hip-hop-take-center-stage\/","title":{"rendered":"History of Lo-fi: How Did Lo-fi Hip Hop Take Center Stage?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Now that we’ve dabbled in how to make Lo-fi<\/a><\/span>, we thought it would be a super cool idea to dive into what Lo-fi actually is and why it came to be. <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Lo-fi Hip Hop<\/a><\/strong><\/span> has swarmed YouTube with so many channels that output a variety of Lo-fi. 24-hour live streams of chill beats to listen to while studying<\/strong> or gaming<\/strong>… or, of course, just casual listening. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Lo-fi is full of the nostalgia of sounds from ’90s Hip Hop and anime, vinyl crackle, low fidelity cassette tapes, etc. Merged with a more genuine method of recording and keeping organic mistakes in the piece, you have a genre of music that went from being an outsider to being mainstream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is Lo-fi Music?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Lo-fi music<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, where lo-fi is an abbreviation of low fidelity<\/strong>, is the polar opposite of high fidelity music. Fidelity translates to faithfulness. In a musical context, it means faithfulness to a sound. A hi-fi label on music equipment means the piece of equipment reproduces the signal as accurately as it can, and fidelity is a buzzword when talking about sound quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lo-fi recordings are more often than not full of distortion and noise. Before people began to use the term “lo-fi” to describe a genre, people would use the term to describe music made with substandard equipment. A great example of the type of music typically thrown into this category was a lot of ’60s garage rock and ’70s punk rock, and later 80’s and 90’s punk too. This music was made in studios that made use of cheap equipment to record and churn out albums as fast as possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before people began to use the term “lo-fi” to describe a genre, people would use the term to describe music made with substandard equipment. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As more and more indie rock\/punk rock bands began to take shape here there and everywhere across the UK and America, the term \u201clo-fi\u201d soon began to be associated with the grittier side of music emerging in with these ’80s bands. Bands were pumping out music that was not overly conventional and was dubbed under lo-fi. \u201cThe thin quality of the recordings, the layers of tape distortion and hiss, as well as the tendency toward abstract, obtuse lyrics made the music sound different and left of center,\u201d state AllMusic<\/a><\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the ’90s came and progressed, lo-fi music took on an even more erratic nature. The music became more outlandish and intently noisy. Beck\u2019s \u201cLoser\u201d was recorded in his producer\u2019s kitchen!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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