Our Story

Established in 2019 and headquartered in New York City, Etymology Records is a creative collective that focuses its production on instrumental hip hop music. Our first release was my own album published under my stage name “Jazzinuf”, specifically my 9th Album, “Miracle of the Fishes”. Within 5 months we have garnered over 2.5 million views on Spotify, collecting over 400,000 monthly listeners. Our first debut compilation album, “Barista Beats,” was released in May 2020 featuring 18 producers from around the world.  

“Although our label is somewhat new, our core purpose is to build a bridge between contemporary sounds and the past – hence the name “Etymology.”  Looking through decades of music history, musical genres have been born of fusing disparate styles. From the merge of African tribal music and French impressionist harmonies, Jazz was created. Similarly, Rock and Jazz came together to make Soul/Funk. This later gave way to Hip Hop, which when blended with Disco, created Electronic music and later House.

The musicians of Etymology Records all have one thing in common, they all follow the formula of making timeless music. We aim to make music catering for all generations of people including the people of the far future and those who prefer the sounds of the past. Our initial efforts have been to build a bridge to help Hiphop and House to reconnect back with their mutual ancestor, Jazz and possibly reunite other genres back to their roots.”

Edward Lim, CEO/founder