Music of Azerbaijan

[1] Music from Azerbaijan has a branch mode system, where chromatisation of major and minor scales is of great importance.

Modern-day advocates of Western classical music in Azerbaijani include Farhad Badalbeyli, Fidan Gasimova and Franghiz Alizadeh.

Beginning in 1900, opera troupes toured Baku on a yearly basis (except 1901 and 1913), featuring prominent singers of the time such as Natalia Ermolenko-Yuzhina and Antonina Nezhdanova.

Prominent Azerbaijani opera singers such as Bulbul, Shovkat Mammadova, Fatma Mukhtarova, Huseyngulu Sarabski, Hagigat Rzayeva, Rashid Behbudov, Rauf Atakishiyev, Muslim Magomayev, Lutfiyar Imanov, Fidan and Khuraman Gasimovas, Rubaba Muradova, Zeynab Khanlarova and many other singers gained world fame.

Meykhana is a distinctive Azerbaijani literary and folk rap tradition, consisting of an unaccompanied song performed by one or more people improvising on a particular subject.

Meykhana is often compared to hip hop music, also known as national rap among Azerbaijani residents, as it also includes performers that is spoken lyrically, in rhyme and verse, generally to an instrumental or synthesized beat.

[12] Three major schools of mugham performance existed from the late 19th and early 20th centuries - the region of Garabagh, Shirvan, and Baku.

Azerbaijani pop music reached a new level after the country made its debut appearance at the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest.

Among modern famed Azeri jazz musicians are Aziza Mustafazadeh, who was influenced by Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett,[23] Isfar Sarabski, Salman Gambarov and Rain Sultanov.

The first Azerbaijani hip-hop song "Yesterday is Past", created in 1983 by Chingiz Mustafayev, who would later become Azerbaijan's national hero for unrelated reasons.