The genre itself however, is considered to have originated in the mid-1990s with the work of Raphael Saadiq's band Tony! Toni! Toné! and with D'Angelo's 1995 LP "Brown Sugar."
In 1997, Motown artist Erykah Badu released her debut LP, Baduizm, the success of which paved the way for new Motown chief Kedar Massenburg to shift the direction of much of the company's output towards Badu's style, which he dubbed neo-soul. To date, the neo-soul artist to make a largest impact on the mainstream is Lauryn Hill, whose 1998 "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" LP was a critical and commercial smash and garnered five Grammy Awards.
As its name (new-soul) implies, Neo-Soul music is essentially modern-day soul music, with contemporary attitudes and sensibilities. It differs from contemporary R&B in that it's obviously more soulful, and it also tends to have deeper messages and meanings than typical contemporary R&B.
In general, neo-soul has remained almost exclusive to R&B outlets such as urban radio and BET; most of its artists are unfamiliar to mainstream audiences, and its sound generally focuses on artist expression rather than pop orientation. While these artists have found major success in those venues, they generally have yet to crossover to mainstream American music listeners.
Many musicians in the genre, however, prefer to disassociate themselves from the tag and simply refer to themselves as Soul musicians.
Examples of popular Neo-Soul artists include John Legend, Erykah Badu, Maxwell and Jill Scott.
