Producers Fast Eddie and Joe Smooth mix at DJ International Studios in Chicago in 1990. Innovation was at the forefront of house and hip-hop. Raymond Boyd/Getty Images There was a time when artists ...

While hip-hop is continuously in a state of innovation, early on its ear for music was attached to the sounds its earliest listeners enjoyed partying to.

There was a time when artists representing two of America’s biggest homegrown musical genres wouldn’t get a look in at the Grammys. Hip-hop and house both have their origins in the 1970s and early ...