The Sound and the soil
Music isn’t just sound - it’s place. It’s story. It’s culture set to rhythm.
In today’s industry, genres are often treated like vibes to tap into or marketing angles to experiment with. But for some artists, genre isn’t a costume. It’s home. It’s lived-in. It’s the language of where they’re from and what they stand for.
These are the artists who don’t just work within a genre; they carry it. They grow it without leaving the roots behind.
Let’s look at three genres where that kind of grounded evolution is happening out loud.
Hip-Hop: From Nas to J. Cole — Carriers of Clarity
When Nas released Illmatic in 1994, it landed like a literary event.
He was barely 20, but his lyrics held the weight of generations - documenting Black life in Queensbridge with surgical precision and poetic grit. There was no pop polish, no throwaway hooks. Just beats, bars, and reality.
It wasn’t just a debut, it was a map.
Nas helped define what hip-hop could be: a cultural archive, a warning, a pulse check.
J. Cole, born a few years after Illmatic, came up with respect for the foundation, but he didn’t try to replicate it.
Instead, he carved his own space in the genre, one rooted in emotional honesty and social introspection.
Raised in North Carolina, Cole’s music reflects a quieter kind of truth: about growing into manhood, unpacking trauma, resisting fame, and creating on his own terms.
He built Dreamville into a label that gives Southern and indie artists space to thrive outside industry trends.
And as Cole matures, so does his work; less performative, more reflective, yet still grounded in the urgency that made hip-hop revolutionary in the first place.
Between Nas and Cole, you see hip-hop’s full spectrum: hard truth and hard-earned growth.
Reggaetón: Ivy Queen and Bad Bunny — Sound as Selfhood
Reggaetón’s sound is unmistakable.
Its global popularity? Undeniable. But its heart?
That’s always been Puerto Rico.
Ivy Queen kicked down the door in a genre dominated by men - matching their intensity, surpassing their lyricism, and refusing to shrink herself to fit the mold.
Her songs weren’t just for dancing, they came with teeth. She addressed abuse, respect, independence, and womanhood, while always repping her island.
Ivy wasn’t “female reggaetón”, she was reggaetón, period.
Then came Bad Bunny. Not as a replacement, but as a response to the genre’s evolution.
He didn't soften the edges for global fame - he sharpened them. He’s never stopped using his platform to speak openly about Puerto Rican politics, identity, colonialism, and queerness. Songs like “El Apagón” and “Andrea” aren’t just tracks; they’re protest art.
His full-Spanish catalog, intentional fashion, and recent Coliseo residency in San Juan scream a message: This isn’t borrowed. This is born here.
Together, Ivy and Benito show that reggaetón can grow and globalize without losing sight of the people, pain, and pride that built it.
Country: Dolly Parton to Kacey Musgraves - Tradition, Rewritten
Country music has always been storytelling.
Dolly Parton, more than maybe anyone, knew how to tell a story people wanted to believe in. Raised in the Smoky Mountains, she wrote about real people with real problems and did it with warmth, wit, and a clarity that crossed class and coasts.
Behind the rhinestones and big hair was a songwriter who understood poverty, resilience, and complicated faith.
But Dolly didn’t just sing about her world, she built from it. She quietly funded vaccine research, donated millions to literacy, and kept her politics subtle but firm. She never left the South, even as she redefined what a Southern woman in country music could be.
Kacey Musgraves walks into that tradition with a different set of questions. Her music isn’t about glamorizing the past, it’s about pulling it apart. Same-sex love, divorce, mental health, spirituality that doesn’t sit in a pew - she writes about all of it, with a tone that’s modern but unmistakably country.
She doesn’t sound like she’s trying to “flip” the genre. She just sings as herself, and country has stretched to make space for it.
The thread between Dolly and Kacey isn’t rebellion. It’s honesty.
Not every artist wants to carry a genre. Some just want to make a hit, grab some streams, and move on. That’s fine. But if we’re asking who really represents a culture, who lives inside the sound, not just around it, it’s artists like these.
They aren’t cosplaying. They’re not following trends for aesthetics. They’re telling you where they come from and inviting you to listen closely.
Because when music is made from the soil, not just the surface, it sticks with you.
And it sticks around.
Written by Paulina Vazquez
