Hip-hop soul

Hip-hop soul is a subgenre of contemporary R&B music, most popular during the early and mid 1990s, which fuses R&B or soul 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 and late 1990s with artists such as Mary J. Blige (known as the "Queen of Hip-Hop Soul"), Jodeci, Faith Evans, TLC, and R. Kelly. By the late 1990s, hip-hop soul would lead to the creation of neo soul, which retained the hip-hop and R&B influences while also adding elements of classic 1970s soul music.