Neo soul

Neo soul (also known as nu soul) is a musical genre that fuses contemporary R&B, 19

Neo soul (also known as nu soul) is a musical genre that fuses contemporary R&B, 1970s style soul, and hip hop, and jazz. 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. This is because most of the people who record in the genre and listen to it tend to be anti-mainstream preferring that the music favor underground credibility and soulfulness over mainstream popularity.

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 70s 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 (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 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 smash and garnered five Grammy Awards.