Neo soul

Neo soul (also known as nu soul) is a musical genre that fuses contemporary R&B, 1970s style soul, and hip hop. It is the third major sub-genre of contemporary R&B, after the new jack swing of the late 1980s/ early 1990s and the hip-hop soul of the early to mid 1990s. The "neo soul" term, originated by Kedar Massenburg of Motown Records in the late-1990s, is sometimes looked upon with disdain as nothing more than a marketing specialization of contemporary R&B instead of an honest revival of soul music, because most of the people who record in the genre and listeners tend to be anti-mainstream favoring to retain soul underground credibility and soulfulness over mainstream popularity.

Early works

The genre is considered to have originated with the work of Raphael Saadiq's band Tony! Toni! Toné! in the mid-1990s, and 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 (both keyboardists, as is D'Angelo), that had not been regularly seen in modern African-American mainstream music since the mid-1980s. Also, in 1995 came the work of a duo called Groove Theory, which included the members Amel Larrieux, the singer and Bryce Wilson, the rapper/singer/producer/actor. In 1997, Motown artist Erykah Badu released her debut LP, Baduizm, the success of which 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 neo-soul 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 smash and garnered five Grammy Awards.

Related Topics:
Raphael Saadiq - Tony! Toni! Toné! - 1990s - D'Angelo - 1995 - Brown Sugar - Stevie Wonder - Donny Hathaway - Keyboardist - African-American - 1980s - Groove Theory - Amel Larrieux - Bryce Wilson - 1997 - Motown - Erykah Badu - Baduizm - Kedar Massenburg - Lauryn Hill - 1998 - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill - Grammy Awards

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