As President of Motown Information, Kedar Massenburg had a expertise for making a splash from 1997 to 2004. Like a sure UK Prime Minister-in-waiting within the Nineties, Massenburg knew all concerning the energy of branding. For Tony Blair, this was ‘New Labour’, whereas for Massenburg it was ‘neo soul’.
In fact, it’s attainable that had the self-described ‘advertising and marketing genius’ not dreamed up the title, the music popping out of Motown and different Black labels within the second half of the 90s might need merely discovered itself within the up to date R&B or soul sections of HMV.
However because it was, Massenburg fabricated a wholly new classification. “When it comes to advertising and marketing at this time, there’s the necessity to categorise music for customers in order that they know what they’re getting,” he instructed Billboard journal in 2002. “For lack of a special time period, I coined ‘neo soul.’”
It was left for others to nail down what made neo soul totally different from new jack swing, R&B or progressive soul.
“Although it’s roughly analogous to up to date R&B,” writes AllMusic, “neo soul artists pay extra devotion to the period of basic soul, usually searching for a sound and a method of songwriting with few concessions to occasions within the music world post-1975.”
Masterclass, in the meantime, describes it as “a sub-genre of latest R&B that merges the basic soul sounds of Stax and Motown Information with grooves borrowed from hip-hop, rock, funk and digital music.”
Neo soul’s interval within the solar was temporary. As Massenburg defined in 2002: “Lots of people don’t just like the time period as a result of, if you classify music, it turns into a fad, which tends to go away.”
And positive sufficient, lots of its greatest names – from D’Angelo to Maxwell to Erykah Badu to Lauryn Hill – both fell from favour or exited stage left.
Massenburg himself departed Motown to type his wine firm, Kedar Drinks.
There have been a number of albums because the style’s heyday that hark again to its sound – Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange and Alicia Keys’ As I Am amongst them – however largely neo soul is a style caught in amber.
Thirty years on from its zenith, neo soul isn’t new anymore. Nonetheless, few genres encapsulate an period just like the acts coated right here.