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.

Lack of mainstream success

In general, neo-soul has remained almost exclusive to R&B outlets such as urban radio and BET; 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 crossover to mainstream American music listeners.

Related Topics:
Urban - BET - Crossover

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To date, Hill remains the most well-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", 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, however, 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 AC charts.

Related Topics:
1999 - Grammys - AC

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Towards the turn of the millennium, Macy Gray had a massive urban, pop, and AC hit with "I Try", making her pretty well-known by mainstream America. Gray's other singles, while successful in some outlets, failed to make an impression on the pop charts as "I Try" did. Wyclef Jean's protégés City High managed two successful singles on the pop charts, "Caramel" and "What Would You Do", in 2001, which was a time when hearing hip-hop on pop radio was no longer anything exceptional, as it had been during Hill's initial success. Because of this, City High did not receive the same widespread recognition that Hill had three years earlier; and since City High's singles were more upbeat and rhythmic sounding than Keys' "Fallin'" and Gray's "I Try", they did not cross over onto the AC charts. As a result, City High, is nowhere near as well known as either Hill, Gray, or Keys, even despite the group's pop radio and MTV hits.

Related Topics:
Macy Gray - Wyclef Jean - City High - 2001 - MTV

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The 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 in America 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, e.g., D'Angelo's performance on VH1's Men Strike Back 2000 and Badu's role in the movie The Cider House Rules. Only time will tell whether any of the other neo soul artists begin to crossover into the mainstream and become household names, or whether the genre remains predominantly as a sub-genre of music played mainly just on urban radio stations and BET.

Related Topics:
BET - MTV2 - VH1 Soul - Maxwell - Erykah Badu - D'Angelo - VH1 - Men Strike Back 2000 - The Cider House Rules

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