Neo-soul, according to www.thefreedictionary.com, is a fusion of R&B music, soul music from the 1970s, and hip-hop. Without a doubt, neo-soul music is all these things and more. It is a mixture of the aforementioned, along with jazz and blues. Neo-soul music takes different parts from all the genres that have come before it to make a music that is unique, yet familiar.
This genre of music not only borrows its sounds from the types of music listed above, but also their themes. Neo-soul music, much like R&B, discusses love for the most part. The music can be extremely romantic or utterly heartbreaking. Besides love, another important aspect of neo-soul music is its social commentary. Many artist believe that they must balance their message of love with what is going on in the world today. For example, Erykah Badu, a neo-soul artist, has a song where she voices her opinion about the shooting of a Black man by New York City police officers.
This fusion that would later be called neo-soul music began to take shape in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Groups like New Edition, Guy, and Boyz II Men begin to blend classic R&B music with newly emerging hip-hop music. The culmination of this was the release of an album by Mary J. Blige. Her album, “What’s the 411?”, is considered by many to be the first fusion of all the elements that work together to be called neo-soul music.
In the mid-1990s, neo-soul began to take off and gain more respect as a musical genre. The most noteworthy of the albums released during this time was Lauryn Hill’s “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill”. This album, which discussed many of the issues that Hill faced growing up, perfectly blended each and every genre that makes up neo-soul music. On some of the songs, Hill sings, the most important element of R&B music. On other songs, she raps, the quintessential element of hip-hop music. Displaying her versatility as an artist paid off big. She won 5 Grammy awards for her album and sold 8 million albums.
Today, neo-soul is not in the spotlight as much as it once was. Although there are still artists that represent the genre well in mainstream, music, such as Alicia Keys, most of the artist less well-known. The music however has stayed the same and continues to have a large following. The artists of neo-soul music stay true to their roots.
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