Hip hop soul
| Hip hop soul | |
|---|---|
| Stylistic origins | |
| Cultural origins | 1992, United States |
| Typical instruments | Vocals |
| Derivative forms | Neo soul |
Hip hop soul is a subgenre of contemporary R&B music, most popular during the early and mid 1990s, which fuses rhythm and blues/gospel singing with hip hop musical production. The subgenre had evolved from a previous R&B subgenre, new jack swing, which had incorporated hip-hop influences into R&B music. By contrast, hip hop soul is, as described in The Encyclopedia of African American Music, "quite literally soul singing over hip hop grooves".
The genre was most popular during the mid 1990s with artists such as Mary J. Blige (known as the "Queen of Hip-Hop Soul"), Mariah Carey, Jodeci, TLC, R. Kelly, and Montell Jordan. By the late 1990s, hip hop soul would lead to the creation of neo soul, which retained the hip-hop and R&B/gospel influences while also adding elements of classic 1970s soul music.
Hip hop soul evolved directly from new jack swing, a form of contemporary R&B popularized by artists and producers such as Teddy Riley and his group Guy, Keith Sweat, and Bobby Brown. New jack swing had incorporated elements of hip-hop music—primarily hip-hop-inspired drum tracks and rapped verses—into contemporary R&B music also heavily inspired by the work of Prince. Hip hop soul took the hip-hop/R&B synthesis further by having R&B singers sing directly over the types of sample-heavy backing tracks typically found in contemporary hip-hop recordings.
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