As I kick off my genre deep dives, it feels fitting to start with Neo-Soul—a genre that, like many others, was partly shaped by marketing. But defining it raises a bigger question: How do we categorise artists, albums, and sounds in a world where genre boundaries are constantly being pushed and blurred? With artists constantly blending influences across time and space, it becomes harder to define or box anyone in. While we’re often told not to put people into boxes, artists continue to be classified based on race, background, or origin. The result is a paradox—genres may be fluid, but they still rely on elements such as history, visuals, fashion, beliefs, themes, and instruments to give them shape.
In this article, I’ll explore Neo-Soul’s origins, its fluid sonic evolution, and its cultural and global intersections. We’ll also look at its aesthetic and lifestyle elements, which help shape the genre’s complexity and significance.
Origins: a fluid sound
The term “Neo-Soul” was coined by Kedar Massenburg, a Motown executive in the late 1990s, as a way to market a new wave of Black artists blending traditional soul with elements of hip-hop, jazz, and R&B. This new wave wasn’t merely about nostalgia—it was about blending the old with the new to create something modern, yet deeply rooted in the soul and funk sounds of the ’60s and ’70s. Artists like Erykah Badu, D’Angelo, Lauryn Hill, and Maxwell were at the forefront of the movement, yet it’s important to note that not all artists embraced the label. Some felt it confined their creativity, while others saw it as an opportunity to carve out a distinct, introspective space in Black music.
Albums such as The Low End Theory by A Tribe Called Quest, Plantation Lullabies by Me’Shell NdegéOcello, and Sons of Soul by Tony! Toni! Toné! from the early ’90s were equally influential in paving the way for Neo-Soul’s rise.
Ironically, Neo-Soul emerged as a direct response to the glossy, commercialised pop-R&B of the late ’90s. It emphasised authenticity, intimacy, and lyrical depth—qualities lost in the fast-paced, mass-produced world of mainstream music. But was Neo-Soul truly a new genre, or simply a reimagining of the old? While its roots are firmly planted in soul, its prefix “neo” suggests more than just a revival—it’s an evolution, a conversation about the continued relevance of the soul genre beyond its 1960s and 1970s heyday. Critics argue that it was just a form of cultural amnesia, while others see it as an evolution of soul music rather than a revival.
Neo-Soul is more than just a sound—it’s a collage of influences that blends funk, jazz, gospel, reggae, and hip-hop. This fusion results in a sound that’s both familiar and fresh. But its fluidity isn’t just musical; it reflects a larger cultural movement—one that pushes for creative freedom and resists rigid classification, opening the door for global conversations about Blackness and identity.
History: intersections of Blackness
Although Neo-Soul is heavily associated with the U.S., it’s not bound to a single place, history, or community. Fila-Bakabadio notes:
The Atlantic Ocean becomes a space of circulation between the United States, Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and beyond.
“Pick Your Afro Daddy”: Neo Soul and the Making of Diasporan Identities
Neo-Soul is a global conversation, a dialogue between Black musical traditions that transcends national boundaries.
The “Afro” identity embedded in Neo-Soul allows it to celebrate mixed and creole identities, rather than remaining tied to a fixed national narrative. Unlike genres that are deeply rooted in a specific national context—such as early soul movements, which were framed within Black American struggles—Neo-Soul thrives in motion. It allows for the blending of sounds, experiences, and stories from various corners of the diaspora. This expansive view of Blackness, migration, and memory gives Neo-Soul a unique place in the larger landscape of Black music, connecting past and present, struggle and triumph, in a way that acknowledges both the local and the global.
Neo-Soul doesn’t just reflect the African American experience—it celebrates the complexities of Blackness across borders, showing how music can be a bridge between histories, places, and cultures.
Aesthetics: knit caps, incense and veganism
Neo-Soul’s aesthetic is as distinctive as its sound, shaped by the marketing of a genre that embraced both music and visuals. The style was earthy and retro-inspired, with stripped-back simplicity— you might think earth tones, scarves, knit caps, and a nod to natural living, including practices like veganism. And while these visual elements may now seem part of a broader “earthy” aesthetic, they trace their roots back to earlier cultural movements, particularly the ‘70s. Neo-Soul, like all culture, isn’t about creating something entirely new, but revisiting and reshaping what has come before.
Films like Love Jones, with its star-studded Neo-Soul soundtrack, played a significant role in embedding the genre’s aesthetic in the cultural landscape. The soundtrack, featuring tracks from artists like D’Angelo, Lauryn Hill, and Maxwell, highlighted the fusion of music and lifestyle that defined the Neo-Soul movement.
The act of rejecting the “Neo-Soul” title wasn’t just about avoiding categorisation—it reflected the complexity of the identity Neo-Soul artists were carving out for themselves. They weren’t trying to be different for the sake of it. Instead, they were navigating a space that didn’t quite fit into the boxes of R&B, Jazz, or Hip-Hop. Just like their music, their clothing, hobbies, and lifestyle choices existed in a hybrid space, refusing to be neatly classified. This fluidity of expression—whether it was in the art they made, the poems they wrote, or the food they ate—was an essential part of the Neo-Soul ethos: an embrace of a multifaceted identity, woven from a variety of cultural threads that weren’t meant to be confined to one label.
Embracing the Contradictions
Neo-Soul exists in the tension between definition and ambiguity, between the familiar and the unknown. It resists easy classification, but in doing so, it allows for the full expression of Black identity—both personal and collective. Neo-Soul isn’t just a genre of music; it is a cultural movement that thrives in the intersections of history, sound, and visual identity. What speaks to me is the embodiment of Blackness that is both rooted and expansive, both reflective and forward-looking.
In embracing its contradictions, Neo-Soul becomes more than just a genre. It challenges the very idea of categorisation and invites us to rethink how we define and experience music, culture, and identity—revealing a space where fluidity and structure coexist.