Birthplace of New Jack Swing Burns Down

As some of you may already know, the place where New Jack Swing was born burned to the ground in a suspicious fire in Virginia Beach early this morning. Riley abandoned Future Records Recording Studios when he defaulted on his mortgage loan. The building an its outdated equipment was put up for auction but no one met the $500,000 initial bid.

So I’m having a conversation today with my photographer Freddy O about the legendary producer Teddy Riley and New Jack Swing. I’m telling him about Redhead Kingpin and dude is silent.

I’m like, “Fred, you’ve heard of New Jack Swing, right?” He says, “Nope.” Oh my God, does this generation know anything about our musical history? Has an entire generation of kids been lost to BET and MTV?

I mean, even when I was in high school I knew who all the Jazz greats were like Coltraine Shirley Bassey,

According to Wikipedia, the term “New Jack Swing” was coined by writer-filmmaker Barry Michael Cooper (screenwriter for the films New Jack City, Above The Rim, and Sugar Hill. But Teddy Riley brought the new sound to the masses with groups like Guy, Tony, Toni, Tone; Wrecks-N-Effect and Redhead Kingpin, among others.

Check out some of the videos from the New Jack Swing era after the break!

WRECKS-N-EFFECTS & TEDDY RILEY – NEW JACK SWING