Neosoul: making something old into something new
Neosoul is the perfect child of R&B, soul, Hiphop/Jazz, and many genres that have higlighted the Black American experience for years. It allows for artist that don’t feel like their muscianship fits in the genres that already existed.
The prefix neo means: new, recent, revived, and/or modfied. Soul music is defined as a gospel influenced genre of African American Music that spoke to younger generations that were coming about in the 50s and 60s. Soul music was the soundtrack of the Civil Rights Movement and The Black Power movement. So when you put those words together you get a revived,new, and more recent version of soul music that is inspired artist like Amy Winehouse, Jill Scott, D’angelo, Erykah Badu, and so many more.
The passion and legacies of Stevie wonder, Roberta Flacke, Donny Hathaway, Sam Cooke, and Otis Redding lives on through these neosoul artist.
NeoSoul is my favorite niche genre of music because it allows for diveristy in music and it doesn’t hold the artist in a box. It allows for artist to take their favorite things from the most popular genres of Black American Music and make a smooth and melodic discography. There are similarities but more often than not the songs sound very different yet cohesive when put on an album.
From Erykah Badu, D’angelo, and Lauryn Hill popularizing it in the 90s, the genre has grown in such a way that makes me proud to be Black.
