“There are no barriers now. That’s scaring some people, but making many more really happy” opens Radio 1’s urban guru Trevor Nelson. He's talking about a concentrated blurring of lines over the past year or so between house and hip-hop – previously (and massively) distinct genres now holding hands in a variety of unpredictable ways. Think Dizzee Rascal and Calvin Harris; think Wiley’s 2008 smash Wearing My Rolex; most recently, I Gotta Feeling by The Black Eyed Peas….

But is all this a conscious musical shift or just a handful of isolated records?  “It might have started with a handful of isolated, mainstream tunes, but it’s definitely snowballed into something altogether bigger” Nelson says. “When urban acts like Dizzee and Wiley started experimenting with old ’89 rave sounds they were, in turn, inspiring a whole group of yet-to-emerge artists. A few months later on and you’ve got several urban-dance singles by newcomers in the charts. I mean, Taio Cruz is currently number one with Break Your Heart, an unashamedly upbeat fusion of pop, R&B and dance.”

Indeed. It’s not just house and hip-hop hooking up - a wide sweep of uptempo club and pop music styles is currently being woven into urban cuts across several different ‘street’ categories. A lot of the weaving is British too. “For the first time in a long time if feels like us Brits are operating a non-stop conveyor-belt of unique, Brit-sounding urban music” Nelson laughs. “The Americans are watching what we’re doing, rather than the other way round.”

For years now, undeniably, much of the Brit urban industry has built itself on imitating sounds from slick American counterparts. UK creativity has suffered; artists and audiences have, to a degree, remained isolated and inaccessible. It’s taken a few new artists with bold new ideas to shake the party up. “You’re going to get the cynical, commercial argument that record labels are simply looking to extend their influence” Nelson argues. “By working other genres into the urban blueprint, your signings attract new listeners and make more money. But I think recent developments have been more organic than that.

“People like Dizzee, Wiley and Tinchy Stryder are incredibly creative and open-minded; they masterminded the grime revolution way back, a truly Brit-built scene upping the BPMs on traditional hip-hop and dropping innovative beats and rhymes. The advent of online has also played its part.”

Lee Tyler, Editor of the ever-influential Blues & Soul Magazine, agrees:  “The explosion of mp3 and file-sharing has opened hip-hop’s door to a wider public audience; it’s opened the door to cross-pollination of sounds and influences. Artists are no longer branded sell-outs if they try new things.”

Tyler also argues that people have tired of the ‘gangster’ swagger many urban genres previously motored on: “The whole ‘attitude’ thing is no longer cool for listeners; it’s boring. People had started to desert hip-hop and its associated scenes; artists were forced to re-think, and that is coming across now in their positive new sounds.”

There will always be ‘diehards’ in both the urban and dance music camps outraged at the way their beats are being spliced, diced and supposedly diluted. But, in truth, music does needs to re-think and evolve; it can’t afford to sit still if it wants to keep engaging on a major scale. At the same time, there will always be underground scenes producing ‘pure’ material; so surely there’s no need to grumble?

Today, major Yank stars like Busta Rhymes, Eve and, of course, the Black Eyed Peas are making moves to bottle the heady hybrid essence of recent successful Brit urban ‘n’ dance collaborations. Elsewhere, Kanye West, Akon and Flo Rida are experimenting with electronica and, as result, offering global sounds for global audiences. Change is spreading rapidly.

“I did a few university gigs last week” Nelson adds. “The kids were showing no biased towards any particular R&B, hip-hop or dance tunes I was playing; they were incredibly open-minded. Times are changing and I’m totally cool with it.”

As most music lovers undoubtedly are as well….