I feel the same way about jazz snobs, so please don't take it as it's your post specifically, but the two of you crystallized the whole push and pull of it all to me. It irritates me to see black folks fighting for some higher ground of "true blackness," and in many ways, that's what the debate of "neo-soul" is to me.Įven in this thread, folks, bands and musical periods in an artist's career, that should be categorized, and were happy to be categorized, as R&B, are now being dragged over to "neo-soul" because of the suggestion that "neo-soul" should be the preferred musical interpretation. That leads me to what you wrote in your description of neo-soul, the pushing of this "genre" gave a really strong accusation that the R&B that bridged Soul and "neo-soul" wasn't good enough.Īnd, I took a sub-conscious offense to that, especially when that was also in the time of when a black artist could be expelled with such ease, just due to their level of success.
While I didn't think the "neo" was an implication that soul was dead, this thread, and the first post, clarifies why I hated, and still do, hate the term.