what IS nu-soul?

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is it a genre encompassing only female singers? does d'angelo count as nu-soul? sterling and ethan disagree, and I don't know: can you help us?

― geeta, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

nu-answerz

― geeta, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

the unspoken shame of that entire thread is that cf 'bouncin back', mystikal is nu- soul!!! basically it means live drums and no squelches or bleeps or techno bits, the exception to this rule is of course destiny's child.

― ethan, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

No, you could be nu-soul with techno bits I think. Mystikal is nu- funk.

― Tom, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

A shortlist of nu-soul artists:

Erykah Badu
Jill Scott
Angie Stone
D'Angelo
Bilal
Raphael Saddiq/Lucy Pearl
Maxwell
India.Arie
Musiq Soulchild

People who could be on this list who I've intentionally left off because there is debate over their membership would include Alicia Keys, Lauryn Hill, Sade, Rachelle Farrell, Terence Trent D'Arby, Macy Gray, Sunshine Anderson, and Jaheim.

― Dan Perry, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

oh that's such a weak answer and funk is a part of soul anyway. it'd only really be nu- funk if there wasn't a chorus, only 'change the game' and erick sermon are true nu- funk.

― ethan, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Dan has it, and all those he left off should stay that way.

― Stuart, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

musiq soulchild do better ballads than stevie wonder.

― ethan, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Nu-Soul + techno bits = Lina, no?

Who is excellent, incidentally, even when she's just doing the straightforward live musicianship thing. When I have time I'll try and work out what distinguishes her from the pack (apart from the techno bits, obviously!).

― Tim, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

You're wrong about funk. Why is "Bouncin' Back" not hip-hop anyway?

― Tom, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

sensual bath music!

― bc, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

ethan, you need to go back to being anne before you embarass yourself.

― jess, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Lina = Blu Cantrell - dubiousness.

― Dan Perry, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Also: Ethan's definition is probably wrong (sorry Ethan!) - I can't imagine that Erykah Badu was needed as a reaction to Timbaland-style R&B at the beginning of '97, and heaps of nu- soul artists avail themselves of samplers. It's just that they only sample certain sounds.

― Tim, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

One could make a credible case for the entire nu-soul movement arising out of a bunch of singers who fell in love with The Roots.

― Dan Perry, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

of course they sample, i never said that, they even use keyboards and synths and stuff, there just aren't techno bits.

'bouncin back' isn't hiphop because alex in nyc loves it.

― ethan, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

What's the relationship of nu-soul to the kind of bedroom soul/quiet storm stuff from the late 70s/early 80s? Cause that genre also did not cross over to Britain (oddly maybe) (and what did we have instead?)

― Tom, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm sorry Ethan, no argument in the world can survive that cites Alex in NYC and Destiny's Child.

― Tom, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

the kind of bedroom soul/quiet storm stuff from the late 70s/early 80s

Could you name some artists here?

― Dan Perry, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

perry is on point

roots related nu soul = jill scott, dangelo, jazzyfatnastees, jaguar wright, badu (label forced tho), more that i've forgotten

also responsible for beanie siegel, eve (sorta) and nikka costa

― bc, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I cant no!! Because it didn't cross over at all! I just remember reading somewhere that there were entire stations in the US devoted to drippy ambient soul! Maybe it was a completely made-up genre, awesome.

― Tom, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

funk is to soul what punk is to rock: eg def NOT "part of anyway"

― mark s, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i have heard a radio station that calls itself the quiet storm. it plays alot of seductive barry white type stuff along with alot of sax instrumentals.

― bc, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(he is the godfather of soul = he is NOT soul himself, obv)

― mark s, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

quiet storm = ?angela bofill, anita baker?

― mark s, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

and we had the NEW ROMANTICS!¡!¡!

― mark s, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If you mean the Anita Baker-esque stuff, a lot of that stuff was CLASSIC. (Clearly not the portions which involved Michael Bolton, but Anita Baker is fantastic.)

― Dan Perry, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

NEW ROMANTICS!¡!¡!
I am waiting for the Nu Romantics

― nathalie, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I've only listened to one quiet storm radio show with any regularity -- this was WBLS back in the late '80's/early '90's -- but I remain impressed with what I heard. The narrow restrictions of style inherent in the format and the emphasis on nostalgia almost demanded a lot of digging through the archives for delicious obscurities, so it ended up being the cloest thing I've ever heard to WFMU-style free-form on black radio.

― Michael Daddino, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

sub-question: even when it's kind of likable and respectable, is any of this shit any good? i mean, some good tunes are coming out of it, for sure, but it's basically just retro cred crud.

put it this way: i like D'Angelo quite a lot, but he does himself no service at all by filling his liner notes with references to Stevie, Marvin, Prince and Sly, because he just can't touch those guys. he should just be his own bad self.

― al, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Maxwell is soul like otis redding is soul.

But is Tweet nu-soul?

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 24 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

And d'angelo always struck me as more to sex what DMX is to violence.

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 24 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Someone like Alicia Keys seems to me to have much more in common w/ Elton John than w/ Carla Thomas.

― Andrew L, Wednesday, 24 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

blah blah blah

― chaki, Wednesday, 24 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

nu-soul litmus test: is said artist likely to cover prince's "adore" (if male) or mary jane girls' "all night long" (if female)

― J Blount, Wednesday, 24 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

D'Angelo pretty much founded nu-soul on his first album, and everyone spun off from there. And I seem to be in the minority, but I absolutely loved Voodoo--it's one of the most tactile R&B records since Marvin Gaye's I Want You, albeit in a totally different way.

Here's a creditable nu-soul history disguised as a Bilal album review:

http://www.citypaper.com/2001-08-01/music.html

― Lee G, Wednesday, 24 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

what IS nu-soul?
Its like old soul, but...um...newer?

― Lord Custos, Wednesday, 24 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

if Sade is nu-soul, then I do like some nu-suol

so there

― g, Wednesday, 24 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"of course they sample, i never said that, they even use keyboards and synths and stuff, there just aren't techno bits."

Ethan, the "no techno" argument is too restrictive a focus on techno - or a more broad allowance for nu-soul, looking at it the other way.

Perhaps the better reading is that nu-soul - versus all R&B in the post-new-jack-swing tradition (which includes post-Timbaland too) - focuses almost exclusively on soul as a source of musical inspiration. They don't just shun techno, but pop and rock too. The split between SWV and Erykha is only partly due to one being pop and the other not; the other reason is that the best thing former ever did was sample Michael Jackson, while the latter wouldn't dare.

This is probably part of why nu-soul is so frequently boring: these artists have frequently elevated bringing nothing new to the table into something of an artform. It's also why so much music that shares *some* but not *all* of nu-soul's characteristics (Lina and Tweet sounding like nu-soul divas getting jiggy; Jay-Z enslaving old soul records in order to boost his ego) are frequently so strangely brilliant in comparison: there's some actual alchemy going on.

― Tim, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm not sure I agree with all that, Tim. Erykah Badu HAS sampled; the single version of "Bag Lady" is Dr. Dre's "XXPlosive" (tho' for the album she had someone re-perform it on guitar). Seems to me she's stepping out of the boundaries that everyone's always assuming nu- soulers place around themselves. And which they (nu-soulers) *think* they place around themselves: I mean, on the same album, Erykah calls herself "an analog girl in a digital world." And on her excellent a capella song (from a soundtrack, can't remember which), "Southern Girl," she claims she doesn't know anything about the internet--or radio! No clue what any of this means, but I'm guessing it's a combo of her a) role-playing mightily (I compared her once to, of all people, Bowie), and b) having little clue what she actually does (and it doesn't matter--sometimes she's pretty great anyway, especially when her music is sparse). Also, I haven't heard much about Bilal or Musiq here. They're definitely from the same school (so to speak--at least one of them's from Philly, I'm pretty sure, and they talk the talk anyway), but their music can (and occasionally does) go all over the place, especially Bilal's. His music's a mess, and he's a total purist--that sentence is a contradiction, and so is he. And back to Dre, a couple nu-soulers have enlisted Dre for production (Bilal on "Fast Lane," and Jaguar Wright on her new album, for starters).

I'm also not sure they shun "rock." But I don't know where I'm going with that one.

― scott woods, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yeah to be honest I like Erykah more than Jill/Angie/India/Alicia, but since she's something of the archetype model here and SWV are an archetype for pop-R&B it seemed suitable.

My argument also doesn't encompass someone like India.Arie (nu-soul meets folk) except possibly in the sense that folk is as trapped-under-glass and thus safe as soul is.

Had to review Musiq's first album, it seemed pleasant but nothing more. What do you hear in him that's particularly distingiushing?

― Tim, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Southern Girl" is role-playing of the most stomach-twisting sort.

― Sterling Clover, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Musiq: well, vocals, mainly, especially the multi-tracked parts. Also like how he samples one of Beck's stodgiest old-soul riffs ("Deborah") and injects some life into it ("the Girl Next Door"). And his lyrics can (occasionally) be really funny--I never feel like he takes his vulnerability too serious. Half that album's great, the other half, who cares.

On "Southern Girl" Erykah Badu reminds me of Mick Jagger, which is a weird thing to say, but it's true! The drawl and awl that.

― scott woods, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Nu-soul is also influenced by hip-hop. The beats. (Questlove doesn't play on half the tracks for nothing). If you're a real soul purist, you can't stand those thudding downbeats and lack of proper choruses. Nu-soul is kind of caught between a rock and a hard place that way--not techy enough for the new school, not proper-song enough for the old.

D'Angelo and Me'Shell Ndegeocello (who is the archetype, honest) are excellent (and they have each done of the best live shows I've ever seen--D'Angelo at Radio City Music Hall, I doubt James Brown could have been better; Me'Shell has the greatest improvising band, they are like PFunk goes jazz). The rest are more patchy, but there's lots to like.

― Ben Williams, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one month passes...

nu soul or neo-soul is a form of black american music that uses hiphop beats and attitude with the music (melody and bass lines) of early R&B and Funk. Archetypes of this genre include tony toni tone'(raaphael saadiq), erykah badu, d'angelo,and ndegeocello. Tech sounds are used for this music(lina, kelis and other neptune tracks) and Nu soul/neo-soul gets its name from the fact that the music is created "from the soul"(reminiscent of early 60's and 70's) and does not follow current radio formulas. Erykah Badu's Baduizm was and is the current model for all nu soul artists because of the "old school" attitude with some of the hottest beats on any album ever. This label is also used as a catch-all phrase for all black alternative artists (macy gray/ seal/ cee-lo/ remy shand) like "alternative" is used for non-conventional rock. *yes, d'angelo's first cd was the first current nu soul record. *yes, lauryn hill is definitely a prominent nu soul artist. *beverly knight's current cd has many nu soul elements. *musiq and bilal are very talented but should not even be mentioned in the same sentence with d'angelo. *Raphael Saadiq's new "instant vintage" can easily be the best cd of 2002 and will change the nu soul/ neo-soul game forever.

― oneworld, Friday, 7 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

What do you think of the new Me'Shell Ndegeocello album? It got a very very positive review in Rolling Stone but I don't trust them at all.

― Josh, Friday, 7 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's excellent. Buy it.

― Ben Williams, Friday, 7 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one year passes...

call it what u will ... a definition of music is the furthest thing from what an artists arrangement of sound does for one !!! ... definitions are for cd store managers and television broadcasters to arrange and think about...the sooner one realises this..the sooner we establish this paramount principle... the sooner music will become pure creations...unbordered, undefined and basically more creative !! crossing boundaries and definitions of sound and song ... confusing cd store managers and tv broadcasters a hell of a challenge !! sing what u will, write what u will, play your music like u will ...and shop for music how u will....leave the labelling out of it !! thats what does the damage to a lot of 'songs' and 'artists' today ..especially the young and fragile creators who are influenced by how people see them and what they call them ......MAN I"M GETTING A BIT DEEP !!!!!!! its late ....i've gotta crash .....i listen to stevie wonder..
hey anyone read the comment above saying that musiq soulchild sings better ballads than stevie wonder ...???
te he he ....kids today !
that was a good laugh for real !!
but hey i'm not gonna place a definition on that child !! ..
do what u do ..
be undefined ...

― abe hanara, Monday, 16 June 2003 13:37 (twenty-two years ago)

ben, in fact I did buy it, and it DID seem good (not perfect), but somehow I felt funny listening to it so I haven't really played it since sometime in 2002.

― Josh (Josh), Monday, 16 June 2003 16:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Cast of DMB thread to thread!

― dave q, Monday, 16 June 2003 16:04 (twenty-two years ago)

one year passes...

are these any good??

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/202-7304729-6303032

(i was gonna start a thread called "unisex soul" but was afraid of the sorts of people it'd attract)

― vahid (vahid), Monday, 23 May 2005 06:28 (twenty-one years ago)

hmmm ... does >this link work?

― vahid (vahid), Monday, 23 May 2005 06:30 (twenty-one years ago)

AAARGH

― vahid (vahid), Monday, 23 May 2005 06:30 (twenty-one years ago)

philly soul
detr oit soul
new york soul
california soul
atlanta soul

and apparently next up ... london soul!

― vahid (vahid), Monday, 23 May 2005 06:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Soul is smelly.

― Comstock Carabinieri (nostudium), Monday, 23 May 2005 06:37 (twenty-one years ago)

ten months pass...

If it's new and you wanna call it "soul"...must be "nu soul". Right?

Check out "Eric Daniel & Friends...Old Sax...Nu Soul" to see what I mean. You can find it at www.saxman.it. Listen up!

Love to all,
Saxman

― eric daniel, Monday, 3 April 2006 10:02 (twenty years ago)

those unisex comps are kinda crappy. neo soul is kinda classicist really, sort of retro neuveo, kind of like the equivalent of retro rockers like kaiser chiefs and people like that but with some hip hop influence in terms of production. which isnt always a good thing, the genre isnt totally bad, at least it used to be quite good, and theres still some good guys doing it, but the best ones who arent 'neo soul' (ie hip hop influenced) but the ones that are just doing straightforward retro inspired soul.

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Monday, 3 April 2006 11:07 (twenty years ago)

I think it was called "neo" rather than "nu" soul, or just "that okayplayer crap."

― ramon fernandez (ramon fernandez), Monday, 3 April 2006 12:37 (twenty years ago)

hey, its not all bad. i think most people just havent heard it properly so they dismiss it. so what if theres a retro sect in R&B? it shouldnt all have to be at the poppier end of the spectrum. but then i know thats what most people on ilx like the most - the stuff that came out when hip hop and R&B went mainstream in the mid-late 90s.

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Monday, 3 April 2006 12:41 (twenty years ago)

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