Neo soul

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This article is about the musical genre. For the Yael Naim song, see New Soul.

Neo soul (also known as nu soul) is a marketing term for a sub-genre of contemporary R&B. The music is usually a hybrid of 1970s-influenced soul music with influences from jazz, funk, hip hop and house music. The term neo soul was originated by Kedar Massenburg of Motown Records in the late 1990s. Neo soul's audience tends to be underground, preferring that the music favor underground credibility and soulfulness over mainstream popularity. Some musicians who create what is described as neo-soul prefer to disassociate themselves from the tag, due to the term's buzzword-like usage. Some of these artists simply refer to themselves as soul artists.

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[edit] History

[edit] 20th Century

The genre is considered to have originated with the work of Raphael Saadiq's band Tony! Toni! Toné! in the mid-1990s, but the term began to surface after the release of singer Joi's debut album Pendulum Vibe, which contained elements of early 1970s style arrangements along with Rock style elements. It resurfaced with D'Angelo's 1995 LP Brown Sugar. Brown Sugar featured elements of classic soul, inspired by artists such as Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway, that had not been regularly seen in modern African-American mainstream music since the early/mid-1970s. In 1995 came the work of a duo called Groove Theory, which included the members Amel Larrieux, the singer and Bryce Wilson. Another possible origin of the neo-soul movement is the UK acid jazz scene of the early 1990s, with artists such as Jamiroquai, The Brand New Heavies, and N'Dea Davenport.

James Yancey a.k.a. Jay Dee a.k.a. J Dilla has also been highly influential to this genre and has produced for Neo Soul artists such as Erykah Badu.

In 1996, Singers Maxwell & Eric Benet both debuted the successful solo albums Urban Hang Suite and True to Myself, pushing the new soul sound into the mainstream. In 1997, Motown Records artist Erykah Badu released her debut LP, Baduizm. The success of that album paved the way for new Motown chief Kedar Massenburg to shift the direction of much of the company's output towards Badu's style, which he dubbed neo-soul. The first soul revival artist to make a major impact on the mainstream was Lauryn Hill, whose 1998 The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill LP was a critical and commercial success, garnering five Grammy Awards.

After Hill's phenomenal success, a number of other neo-soul artists began scoring R&B hits, most notably Angie Stone, Musiq Soulchild, Jill Scott, Macy Gray, Goapele, India.Arie, Davina, Pru, Raphael Saadiq, Alice Smith, Jazzyfatnastees, Adriana Evans, Ursula Rucker, Rhian Benson and Martha Redbone. Other major soul artists have included Lucy Pearl, Floetry, Glenn Lewis, Res, Anthony Hamilton, Bilal and Dwele, all of whom became staples of R&B radio. Recent major neo soul artists include Alicia Keys, John Legend, Joss Stone, Emily King, Chrisette Michele, Ledisi, Conya Doss, Julie Dexter, Laurnea, N'Dambi, Gaelle, Rachael Bell, Joy Denalane, Maya Azucena, Joy, Chuckie "Taliaferro" Slay, Aya, Divine Brown, Angela Johnson, Teedra Moses and British songstress Corinne Bailey Rae who has topped the charts with her self-titled debut CD, receiving three Grammy nominations.

In general, neo soul has remained almost exclusive to R&B outlets such as urban radio and Black Entertainment Television (BET), as well as TV One. Most of its artists are unfamiliar to mainstream audiences, and its sound generally focuses on artist expression rather than pop orientation. While these artists have found major success in those venues, they generally have yet to cross over to mainstream American music listeners.

Hill remains the best-known and consistently successful neo soul artist from a mainstream, commercial point of view, thanks to two big pop singles: "Everything Is Everything" and "Doo Wop (That Thing)", both of which were far more hip hop oriented, containing rapped verses, than most neo soul. Hill is also widely known because of her successful sweep of the 1999 Grammys. Keys is widely known because she has had the biggest single mainstream neo soul hit to date with "Fallin'", which contained no rap verse and consequently managed to cross over not only onto the pop charts, but also onto both the hot and the soft Adult contemporary music charts.

Towards the turn of the millennium, Macy Gray had a massive urban, pop, and adult contemporary hit with "I Try". Gray's other singles, while successful in some outlets, failed to make an impression on the pop charts as "I Try" did.

[edit] 21st Century

Since the year 2000, artists like Musiq Soulchild, Raphael Saadiq, Anthony Hamilton, Kem and Adriana Evans maintain making Neo Soul music, although they prefer to name it Soul music.

Other neo soul artists are hardly known of at all in mainstream America, having yet to cross over to the mainstream despite the fact that most have found success with the urban audience, urban radio, and BET. Most have also found success on the music video channels MTV2 and VH1 Soul. Some, like Maxwell, Erykah Badu, and D'Angelo, are somewhat known by mainstream America for having initiated the neo soul genre, from critical acclaim, from word-of-mouth recommendations of their albums, and from other media appearances, such as D'Angelo's performance on VH1's Men Strike Back 2000 and Badu's role in the movie Blues Brothers 2000.

In October 2003, neo soul was given an outlet in commercial radio in the city of Charleston, South Carolina. WPAL 100.9 FM went from playing traditional R&B and classic soul, to playing neo-soul, under the consultation, and lead of its program director J.R. Rivers.

[edit] External links


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