5 acts who helped make rap popular are hitting Vegas together

Lil Uzi Vert has outgunned rock and roll.

Yes, for the first time ever, hip-hop has surpassed — or drubbed, rather — rock as music’s most popular genre.

According to Nielsen’s year-end report for 2017, eight of the 10 most-listened-to artists of 2017 were hip-hop acts — including the aforementioned 23-year-old mumble rapper — with the only exceptions being Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran.

So, how did we get here?

From a big-picture perspective, it wasn’t that long ago that hip-hop was largely confined to urban radio and only sporadically crossed over into the mainstream.

That all began to change in the late ’80s and early ’90s, when a number of rap artists and hip-hop-influenced R&B acts became a growing presence on pop airwaves and especially on MTV, long before the channel transformed itself into a compost heap of teen mom programming and dating shows.

On Saturday, Mandalay Bay Events Center hosts a concert with five rap and rap-influenced R&B acts who helped catalyze this sea change, all having played a role in taking hip-hop to the masses.

Here’s how they did it:

Bell Biv DeVoe

From New Edition to new jack swing, BBV injected contemporary R&B with a hip-hop swagger and beats that bullied where others bounced. They went from boys to men before Boyz II Men, evolving from high-voice, doe-eyed hits such as “Candy Girl” and “Popcorn Love” in their previous group to slightly more suggestive fare (i.e., “Do Me!”). While it was R&B super-producer Teddy Riley who patented the new jack swing sound BBV is most associated with, don’t forget that Public Enemy’s all-time-great production crew (Eric “Vietnam” Sadler, Hank and Keith Shocklee) also played a prominent role on the group’s smash 1990 debut “Poison.” Check out their work on “Ain’t Nut’in’ Changed!,” where the skronking horns and blaring sirens lend the song an urgency worthy of its exclamation point.

SWV

Specializing in funk that sounded as if it was on performance-enhancing substances, no production crew impacted turn-of-the-century hip-hop more ubiquitously than The Neptunes, from O.D.B. to Snoop D-O-Double-G. And guess where they made their debut? On “New Beginning,” the 1996 sophomore album from these no-nonsense Sisters With Voices. Not as overtly rap-leaning as some of the other acts on the bill, SWV nonetheless worked with numerous hip-hop beatsmiths. And long before Ashanti and Ja Rule set the template for the R&B siren smoothing out a hard-nosed rapper’s rough edges in song, SWV was collaborating with the likes of Erick Sermon, Redman, E-40 and others. The baddest females on the mic at the time took note: Guesting on various SWV tracks, MC Lyte, Queen Latifah, Lil’ Kim, Foxy Brown and Missy Elliott all became Sisters-in-arms.

Biz Markie

’Twas a tone-deaf bray evocative of a lovelorn yak’s mating call that introduced Biz Markie to the masses via his 1989 smash “Just a Friend.” Sure, it’s fair to call Biz Markie a one-hit wonder — but not define him as much. This is a dude who has given us hip-hop’s greatest tune about mucus extraction (“Pickin’ Boogers”) and, in “Toilet Stool Rap,” delivered the genre’s definitive masterwork about writing rhymes while sitting on the porcelain throne. (“Whether I’m constipated, or have diarrhea, I always come out with a funky fresh idea.”) And — wait, there’s more! — he voiced Snorlock the Beatboxing Slug on an episode of “Adventure Time.” What have you done with your life?

EPMD

On “Crossover,” they crossed over with a song about the perils of crossing over. “The rap era’s outta control / brother’s sellin’ their soul / to go gold,” Parrish Smith spat on EPMD’s biggest hit, which did, in fact, go gold. “Crossover” elbowed its way into the top 30 of the Billboard Hot 100, one of the first hardcore hip-hop tunes to impact the pop charts. Smith and Erick Sermon seldom had to raise their voices to heighten the power of their words, their deliveries smooth, poised and almost effortlessly commanding. When New York City became hip-hop’s capital once again in the mid-’90s with Nas as mayor and a Wu-Tang Clan cabinet, Smith and Sermon were its business-minded ward bosses.

Whodini

If Run DMC raised hell, Whodini raised the roof, hip-hop’s first two real breakthrough acts taking different routes to the same destination: the top of the charts. With their second record, 1984’s “Escape,” Whodini delivered hip-hop’s first top 40 album, powered by synth-driven nightclub staples “Freaks Come Out at Night” and “Five Minutes of Funk.” In one of hip-hop’s most fun eras — think the Fat Boys, “Krush Groove” and Kurtis Blow rhyming about the joys of organized athletics (“Basketball is my favorite sport / I like the way they dribble up and down the court”) — it was Whodini who truly got the party started.

It’s yet to stop.

Preview

Who: Bell Biv DeVoe, SWV, EPMD, Whodini, Biz Markie

When: 8 p.m. Saturday

Where: Mandalay Bay Events Center, 3950 Las Vegas Blvd. South

Tickets: $39 and up (877-632-7800)

Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @JasonBracelin on Twitter.