Freestyle is a genre of electronic vocal dance music based on Latin rhythms. It has been called "Latin Hip-hop" and during the 1980's was closely related, sometimes interchangable, with Hi-NRG. Both of these were heavily influenced by Electro/breakdance music and freestyle carries many of those elements to this day.

Ironically, one of those elements is the Planet Rock beat, which I feel is detrimental to the evolution of freestyle. Freestyle is in a sad state, compared to its lofty beginnings.

During the 1970's, disco was mainstream music. After the disco backlash in the early 1980's, its primary audience, Hispanics and Italians, were left without a music to call their own. In 1982, Brooklyn's Afrika Bambataa released the seminal track, Planet Rock, which spawned the Electro movement in New York. Dance music had changed. To make it more suitable for clubs, producers gave electro songs melodies and sung lyrics. New York's dance floors started filling with the Latin crowd. They wanted a music of their own, and eventually freestyle as we know it was born.

During the mid-1980's, freestyle was synonymous with club music. It was practically impossible to go to a club and not hear Shannon's Let the Music Play or Give Me Tonight. Lisa Lisa hit the Billboard pop charts at #35, a blip in the mainstream that would signal what was to come.

In the late 1980's, freestyle was popular only in places with a large Latin population - New York, Los Angeles and Miami. Local radio play in these areas forced more mainstream stations to pick up freestyle, and it soon spread nationwide. Many artists defined the hallmarks of their careers during this time - TKA, Cover Girls, Cynthia and Stevie B. Many reigned in the Top 40.

By the time the 1990's started, freestyle started to decline. A resurgence sparked by producer Carlos Berrios's "new school" sound resulted in the highest-charting freestyle song, Corina's Tempatation (#3 Billboard Hot 100). This could still not save freestyle. Radio stations abandoned freestyle for rap and hiphop, and soon alternative would rule the airwaves. The early 1990's saw the breakup of many groups. Some artists jumped genres. A good example is Kayel (the "K" in TKA), who formed the hip-hop group K7. Mainstream dance music became the genre to flee to.

Today, freestyle languishes. The big, established names, under pressure from record labels, have mostly shifted away from freestyle. This leaves mostly young artists to try and create a resurgence. However, uncreative producers keep rehashing the same beats from over a decade ago, and even the die hard fans can't stand it.

There is the occasional freestyle star, but even they are examples of the state of freestyle today. Rockell has scored several hits, but her albums have one foot in freestyle, the other in dance; a perfect example of freestyle's popularity today - it can't carry a whole album. Some people are hailing (newly reunited) TKA's single When Will I See You Again as a possible starting point for a resurgence, but it uses the standard Planet Rock beat and samples Planet Patrol's Play At Your Own Risk. It may be a tribute to freestyle's foundations, but I view it as rehashing the same tired ideas.

Freestyle won't get anywhere without radio and label support. In light of that, I doubt freestyle will ever rule the mainstream like it once did. However, it still lives, in the underground, and in the hearts of its fans.