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Rare groove is music that is very hard to source or relatively obscure. Rare groove is primarily associated with funk, R&B and jazz funk, but is also connected to subgenres including jazz rock, reggae, Latin jazz, Soul music, rock music, northern soul, and disco. Vinyl records that fall into this category generally have high re-sale prices. Rare groove records have been sought by not only collectors and lovers of this type of music, but also by hip hop artists and producers.Schloss, Joseph G. (2004). Making Beats: The Art of Sample-Based Hip Hop. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. .
Online music retailers sell a wide selection of rare groove at more affordable prices, offering fast downloads in Digital data format. This availability and ease of access has brought about a resurgence of the genre in recent years.
Norman Jay's show was a collaboration with DJ Judge Jules and featured a mainly urban soundtrack from the 1970s and 1980s mixed with early house music. Tracks similar to "rare grooves" had begun to see a following in the 1970s Northern soul movement, which curated a collection of rare and obscure soul records for play in dance clubs.
The rare groove scene began when DJs presented an eclectic mix of music, that placed a particular emphasis on politically articulate dance-funk recordings, connected to the US Black Power movement.Paul Gilroy (1987). There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack. London: Hutchinson, p. 40. Pirate radio stations and DJs participated in a "recovery, repackaging and retrieval" of obscure music that reflected, related to or translated inequalities of race and gender and the struggles of the civil rights movement. Music that had failed to gain acceptance in a previous time was given a "new lease on life" by DJs on pirate radio stations. Rare groove also provided a musical space where the "symbolic capital" of the music became very important.Bakare-Yusuf, Bibi, "Raregrooves and Raregroovers – a matter of taste, difference and identity", in Heidi Safia Mirza (ed.), Black British Feminism: A Reader, Routledge, 1982, Chapter 10. Northern soul is a part of the rare groove scene since the term was first given by deep soul collector Dave Godin from the record shop Soul City in Covent Garden, London. The scene has many record collectors and DJs who pay large sums of money for rare songs from the 1960s/'70s/'80s/'90s that are original copies.
In America, DJ Kool Herc,Hermes, Will. "All Rise for the National Anthem of Hip-Hop", The New York Times, October 29, 2006. Retrieved 30 September 2020. Grandmaster Flash and Africa Bambaataa played 70s rare groove records. James Brown, Jimmy Castor Bunch, and Incredible Bongo Band were on their playlists. Popular breakbeats source was bootleg series Ultimate Breaks and Beats. The longest-running rare groove radio show in the United States is Soul Power on WWOZ 90.7 FM (New Orleans) and wwoz.org, and is hosted by DJ Soul Sister, who is cited as the "queen of rare groove". The show began in 1996.
Schoolly D used samples such as James Brown, Lyn Collins, the J.B.'s, and Maceo & the Macks on album Am I Black Enough for You (1989). DJ Chuck Chillout used samples such as Kool & the Gang, Cameo, Cymande, Talking Heads and Incredible Bongo Band. Stezo also used Lyn Collins, George Clinton, Kool & the Gang and Spoonie Gee.
After the 1970s disco boom was over, many musicians (Bee Gees, Donna Summer, Village People, etc.) who had fame and spotlight in the genre's heyday faded away. Much of the obscure music rediscovered as samples in newer house or hip-hop tracks is labeled "rare groove" retroactively.
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