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For whom is neo-soul?: Black women and rhetorical invention in the public sphere

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For whom is neo-soul?: Black women and rhetorical invention in the public sphere

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FOR WHOM IS NEO-SOUL?:
BLACK WOMEN AND RHETORICAL INVENTION IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE

by

Marcus C. Shepard

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(COMMUNICATION)

May 2016

Copyright 2016 Marcus C. Shepard

ii
DEDICATION

For Uncle Steve, Uncle Neville, Uncle David, Mr. John M. Dawkins, and all my loved
ones who have helped me through this journey.

iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A tribute must be paid to my advisor Dr. G Thomas Goodnight who has
shepherded me through this process from my acceptance call to the numerous revisions
of this dissertation. Dr. Goodnight is a motivating and dedicated advisor who has had an
unwavering commitment to excellence and I would be remised if I did not take time to
thank him for his continued support. Special thanks are also in order for Dr. Randall
Lake, Dr. Shana Redmond, Dr. Henry Jenkins, and Dr. Naomi Warren who have been
invaluable assets throughout this process. Each of them have taken the time to broaden
my perspective and push my thinking in directions I am sure I would’ve never found if it
wasn’t for their kind encouragement and feedback along the way.
I also want to take time to thank my friends for their continued support and
encouragement throughout my doctoral journey. They have truly been pillars of strength
during this experience and I can never thank you all enough. I want to extend a particular
thank you to Kyera Singleton who has been there since our Mellon days. Her continued
support and understanding have sustained my resilient spirit throughout my PhD
experience. To my BLACC family (Janeane Anderson, Nikita Hamilton, Joel Lemuel,
and Styles Akira), this journey would have been impossible without you all holding me
down. From late night work sessions and conversations with my big sister Janeane,
Nikita’s constant protection, and the brotherhood I’ve received from both Styles and Joel,
this journey would have been unimaginable without you all. I would also like to take time
to thank May and Jummy who helped push me over various hurdles. Also, Dr. D thanks
so much for everything. We did it and I owe a lot of it to your constant guidance and
honesty.

iv
To my friends outside of the academy, thank you so much for always having my
back and understanding when I went ghost. Aisha who inspired this journey, thank you
for seeing something in me I didn’t see in myself. Christopher, you aren’t the only PhD in
the crew now and to my primo Jaime, thanks for being a rock and pushing me outside of
my comfort zone. To Jamaal, Ashley, Eboney, Nat, and Candice, and many more thank
you for getting me out of the house and embracing LA. Also a debit is paid to Tarresha,
Erinn, Erin, Dania, Shani, Josh, Ronnette, Lara, Janae, Courtney, Haydee, Evita, Ke, Liz,
Ivette, Charles, Shani, Ulli, Funlola, and numerous others for always sending love and
support. To everyone I interviewed for this project, thank you so much for taking the time
out of your schedule to sit and talk to me about neo-soul. In addition, a special shout out
to Marsha Ambrosius who took time to answer questions and Jill Scott for the
encouragement online. Also thank you to all the artists for their music that empowers me
and fueled this project.
To my family, I have nothing if I don’t have you (I had to sneak some Whitney in
here somehow). Jahan, thank you for taking time to always lend that extra eye throughout
this entire process. To my mom, dad, and ‘the best brother in the whole wide world,’ the
love, advice, and gratitude you have shown me and continue to do so have helped me
grow into the man I am today. I am truly thankful for all of the phone calls, text
messages, emails, and visits you have all extended throughout this difficult journey. Dad,
thank you for always coaching me through the tough times. Thank you Alex for being an
ear and a springboard. Last but not least, thank you mom for always pushing me to stay
true to myself.

v
Table of Contents

Dedication ii
Acknowledgments iii
Table of Contents v
Abstract vi
Chapter One: Introduction 1
Method 7
Neo-Soul’s Rhetorical Function 10
The Public Sphere 14
Hip-hop, its Complexities & Consequences 18
Female Rappers’ Struggle for Reconstruction 22
Patriarchal and Feminist Hindrances to the Public Sphere 25
Music and Social Change 28
Black Feminist Critique 33
Popular Culture and Music Fandom 36
Conclusion 38

Chapter Two: “On & On”: Neo-soul’s foundation 41
Neo-Soul’s Beginnings 46
The Neo-Soul Sound 60
Badu’s –izm 66
Conclusion 79

Chapter Three: That’s My Girl 83
Who Is Jill Scott? 84
Acoustic Soul 103
Conclusion 115

Chapter Four: The Real Thing in Stereo 120
Scott’s ‘The Real Thing’ 124
A New Amerykah 135
Conclusion 151

Chapter Five: B(l)ack to the Future 159
Conclusion 186

Bibliography 194

vi
ABSTRACT

This dissertation defines, interprets, and evaluates the social, political and cultural
transformations of the musical genre neo-soul from 1995 to 2015. Public sphere critique,
fandom studies, Black popular culture and the illusion of life rhetorical perspective on
music are combined. The dissertation contends that neo-soul serves as a generic form of
popular music. At the same time, neo-soul artists and fans act as a counterpublic that
resonates with and articulates an urban experience and contributes to the broader Black
public sphere. This counterpublic genre critiques patriarchal narratives of mainstream
Black popular culture (i.e. hip-hop), resists hegemonic constructions of sexuality and
gender (i.e. feminism), and reinvents Black women’s narrative rationality; thus, the music
provides audiences with relevant “equipment for living” (Burke, 1938). Neo-soul artists
and fandom selected for inquiry include Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, India.Arie, Jazmine
Sullivan, and Marsha Ambrosius.
Keywords: neo-soul, public sphere, rhetoric, invention, narrative, music, race,
fandom, illusion of life
1
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction

A study of an artist and her performances sometimes begins with a personal
history of listening. My listening began with the question “Who is Jill Scott?” This
identity question was posed by three-time GRAMMY-winning neo-soul songstress Jill
Scott on her 2000 debut album Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1. I was not
ready to understand Ms. Scott when I first listened to her album, at the tender age of
eleven. Youth notwithstanding, the sound of her work caught my attention, perhaps
because we shared Philadelphia roots.
i
I kept listening. I tuned into her debut album and
subsequent sophomore work Beautifully Human: Words and Sounds Vol. 2 (2004) for the
instrumentation and vocal performances, not necessarily the lyrical content. I was a
casual listener at best, not a fan, but my enthusiasm grew with the release of Scott’s third
studio album The Real Thing: Words and Sounds Vol. 3 in 2007.
Released at the start of my first year at Northwestern University, I thought of it as
Scott’s “sex” album. It grabbed hold of me as I was coming into my own mature, adult
identity. Created in the midst of Scott’s divorce from her then husband Lyzel Williams,
The Real Thing’s content was raw, honest and captivating. I noticed something deeper in
her work that made me want to listen more. I saw Scott perform live for the first time at
the Chicago Theatre the following year (2008). The experience transformed me from
listener into fan. I devoured the rest of her discography, as if it were reading material for
an additional class. From there, I started to explore other artists similar to Scott. Soon, my
iPod was filled to capacity with the likes of D’Angelo, Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill,

2
India.Arie, Ledisi, Maxwell, and Angie Stone—each introducing me to something new,
and thus expanding my sonic awareness.
Neo-soul had been around for many years by the time I happened upon it in 2007.
Some music historians trace its roots to 1995 when Kedar Massenburg coined the term in
reference to D’Angelo (Cunningham, 2010; Mitchell, 2002; Neal, 2002). Massenburg
explained the genesis of the genre in a 2002 article for Billboard Magazine, “I own the
trademark to neo-soul . . . The term ‘new soul’ or ‘neo-soul’ originated when I came out
with D’Angelo [before Massenburg joined Motown], who was reminiscent of Marvin
Gaye and Donny Hathaway” (Mitchell, 2002, p. 39). D’Angelo did not just reference
familiar vocal and musical “stylings” of the classic soul superstars Massenburg
mentioned. D’Angelo and other neo-soul artists re-envisioned their work for the early
21
st
century by incorporating musical and visual elements of the then dominant hip-hop
culture. D’Angelo and future neo-soul stars created a formula for entrance into the sonic:
referencing hip-hop culture through music and visual dimensions, often having one hand
in their parents’ record collections of classic soul and the other in contemporary Black
popular cultural experiences drawn from their own neighborhoods.
ii

This dissertation analyzes neo-soul as an artistic formula or style for entering into
the sonic.
iii
I identify neo-soul as a mixed musical genre that is rhetorical in its
performance. The analysis develops an understanding of the discourse of and about neo-
soul with a focus on the following dynamics: the music, the lyrics, the visual imagery and
fandom.
iv
The purpose of such a focus is to expand scholarship that has relied primarily
on examinations of Black performers in hip-hop and rhythm-and-blues cultures to include

3
neo-soul and the movement that its artists catalyze through their innovative musical and
visual presentations.
v

Specifically, the dissertation argues that it is important to understand why and
how neo-soul’s artists and fans contribute to the constitution and modification of a Black
public sphere. Neo-soul artists are predominately female performers. Erykah Badu, Jill
Scott, India.Arie and Ledisi, for example, make independent contributions to public
culture and the Black public sphere through their work. These artists attract fans, who are
familiar with hip-hop but who are also open to new lyrics, perspectives, and variations on
popular hip-hop themes. This dissertation analyzes the works of such artists with their
predominately Black female fan bases. I show that neo-soul--like hip-hop--has worked to
minimize barriers of race, class and gender around the world. Unlike hip-hop, the new
genre articulates the Black experience from a more nuanced, complex and accessible
variety of perspectives.
vi
Neo-soul gives voice to post-Civil Rights and post-womenʼs
liberation claims that emerge from the cultural margins--both boundaries defined by hip-
hop’s rhetorical strategies and by broader public discourses of feminism.
Research questions include: How does neo-soul serve as advocacy and generate
debate in the public sphere? How do the standpoints that articulate experience and
everyday life reflected by the genre influence fan perceptions and patterns of
consumption? The genre appears to evidence or suggest alternative social communities
that exist inside and outside of the Black public sphere. Who are the music’s fans and
how do they find difference? Answering these guiding questions requires a study of neo-
soul not only for its economic and cultural capital bases (Bourdieu, 1984). I also take up
inquiry into who is and is not listening, and how audience impact contributes to crossover

4
and rhetorical effectiveness (i.e., hip-hop and R&B). Thus, neo-soul challenges the critic
to measure the success of a genre both in its rhetorical and socioeconomic appeal, which
hinge on the identity and presence of multiple audiences, largely female and Black.
When analyzing women within the Black public sphere, as well as hip-hop itself,
it must be asked why women continue to be the majority who consume neo-soul culture –
despite some noticeable anti-fandom directed toward the movement. Neo-soul’s fans
have shaped the culture and use their status as tastemakers to launch themselves into
criticism of larger public questions. Participation in the music appears to inspire and fuel
these interventions. For instance, many neo-soul fans, in praising their favorite music,
direct attention to the legacy of negative imagery that Black women face within popular
media landscapes. I take up these fans’ contentions through interviews in the following
chapters, arguing that media stereotypes have created a stigma that neo-soul un-masques
through its lyrical and visual performances (Blumer, 1998; Carroll, 1998; Goffman,
1968). I explore how neo-soul’s fans and artists collaborate to challenge, name, and
reverse the symbolic loadings of much popular entertainment representations of black
women and in so doing constitute a potent counterpublic.
vii
Neo-soul’s artists and fans
chose a range of strategies against racist, sexist, and class oriented media representations
by inventing and performing a brand of female empowerment for the Black public
sphere. Taking cues from Black feminist praxis, neo-soul’s musical and visual delivery
speaks to a tradition of Black feminism—utilizing media literacy to give voice to, and
engage the concerns of, women (Collins, 1990). In the performances of this genre,
popular culture both coolly charms and turns up the heat of critique.

5
As a hybrid genre, neo-soul borrows and challenges enthusiasms for the lyrics,
rhythms, sound and style of soul and rap music, while rephrasing and rearranging content
to support counter and alternative ideological ends. Thus I show how neo-soul took on a
counterpublic arc, with a definitive rise, development, fall, and future. Counterpublics
have been studied as invested communities of subaltern groups. A counterpublic can be
assembled and connected among diverse peoples through new expressions of hidden
experiences, a novel variation on familiar style, and associated disturbing, expressive
messages. Under theorized as the aesthetic dimensions of the public sphere may be, I
believe that neo-soul acts as an artifact that when analyzed may disclose how a
counterpublic cultures are created and sustained through changing physical and digital
presences. Habermas (1989) does not speak of the Black public sphere. In addressing the
contributions of public culture to social change, he reviews novels of an 18
th
and 19
th

century Europe that addressed class differences. This study pursues the creative,
emancipatory possibilities of public culture in relation to a Black public sphere.
Admittedly, the study of a single genre offers but a limited perspective, but neo-soul
appears to voice and expand song in the expression of every-day urban living in
important ways.
This dissertation examines multiple dimensions of counterpublic strategies of a
popular culture genre, neo-soul, as a countermovement. How does a public culture play
into and out of stereotypes? How does a genre correct, contrast, and transform controlling
images? What are the evolving themes of a genre? How has fan participation within neo-
soul evolved from its pre-digital roots? What does the nature of neo-soul communication
reveal about the culture and fandom that produced it?

6
This work is structured to study neo-soul chronologically as the music and its
fandom developed from a few defining artists, then moved to a period of greater critical
and commercial recognition and finally, found challenges in sustaining recognition and a
legacy amidst internal and external validity claims. Examining the lyrics, sonic space,
and compositional choices provides more detailed information about the recovery and
opposition that neo-soul offers. Interviews with fans provide insight into how the music
“counters” the culture heard, appreciated, and received.
This study offers a rhetorical analysis of neo-soul music and fandom concerned
with the following questions. What historical occasions give rise to the formation of the
genre and fandom? Who are the artists? How do these artists establish ethos (personal
credibility)? What are the musics’ intentions? Who are the fans? Who are the intended
fans? What values do the fans hold that the artists appeal to? What is the content of the
messages? Do the messages/songs succeed in fulfilling the artists’ and fans’ intentions?
What does the nature of the communication reveal about the culture that produced it?
The following chapters trace the past, present, and future of neo-soul. Much
mainstream popular culture and rhetorical criticism evaluates marginalized rhetorics with
a focus on a static moment in history (Dyson, 2001; Neal, 2002, Perry, 2004, Pough,
2003, Pough, 2004). Yet, a genre and its fans develop across time, and so a logic of
temporality must be identified to understand the dynamics and range of the genre (i.e.,
engaging the past, present and future of an artifact). The neo-generic rhetorical
perspective I introduce centers on a logic of temporality and the movements embedded
within both the music (i.e., virtual time) and the lyrics (i.e., virtual experience) of neo-

7
soul (Sellnow, 1996). Such perspectives illustrate the rhetorical development,
progression, evolution, and innovation of the genre as a counterpublic sphere.
Methods. This neo-generic rhetorical perspective arrives through the pairing of
Sellnow’s (1996) Illusion of Life perspective with fan interviews and neo-soul music
video functions that I have codified through my own survey of music videos released
between 1997 and 2015 of female neo-soul artists identified through fan interviews.
Thirty fans were interviewed for this research project ranging in age (20s – 60s),
geographic location (Detroit, New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and
Cincinnati), gender, sexuality, racial identification (Black, Latino, and mixed race), and
fandom position (music listener, music executive, DJ, music artist, manager, background
singer).
viii
The interview process began with a group of fans I have met over the years
researching the genre neo-soul and snowballed to incorporate other interviewees fans
would recommend. These music fans were interviewed due to their connection, or lack
thereof to neo-soul, as well as their positions as industry insiders or artists. It is important
to study these musical narratives alongside fan interpretations because fan voices can test
my own reading of the fan-based counterpublic that has grown around the neo-soul
movement. Those fans that are most active within neo-soul are vital to the creation and
maintenance of a neo-soul counterpublic sphere. They engage and contribute to this
counterpublic by listening to the music, attending concerts, discussing the music and its
themes, as well as sometimes creating their own music. Fan interviews also confirm or
deny the narrative rationality of the stories told within the music. The fans of a
counterpublic sphere advance the dynamic of a genre through assisting, becoming, or
working with artists. Counterpublics (including recognized artists as well as ensembles)

8
split on alternative recollections of the past, experimental performances in the present,
and moves that will assure vitality for the future.
This study engages neo-soul music through storytelling, and relies on Walt
Fisher’s (1989) narrative paradigm as a framework that humans are storytellers and that
values, emotions, and aesthetic considerations ground our beliefs and behaviors. Fans
then utilize their position as active listeners and critics to deem narrative rationality
regarding equipment for living, coherence, and fidelity. As Fisher (1989) outlines, critics,
in this case fans, decide whether the narrative in the songs are applicable (equipment for
living), whether the narrative makes sense (coherence), and whether the narrative rings
true (fidelity).
ix

While fans and fandom are contested terms with various definitions, most
generally it can be said that fans find themselves within an emotional attachment toward
a specific object or person and “find their identities wrapped in the pleasures connected
with popular culture” (Duffett, 2013a, p. 18). Fandom is social as Jenkins (1992) outlines
and can function in a variety of modes. Fandom can specify (1) a “particular mode of
reception” (p. 277); (2) “a particular set of critical and interpretive practices” (p. 278),
such as preferred reading practices. Also, it (3) “constitutes a base for consumer
activism” (p. 278), that is acting as a fan can mobilize/assert rights to judgments and
express opinions about the artist, text, and performance. Thus, fandom constitutes (4) a
“particular forms of cultural production, aesthetic traditions and practices” (p. 279), with
created works that speak to special interests of the community. I investigate neo-soul as
(5) a functioning “alternative social community” (p. 280).

9
My rhetorical study positions fans in the role of active intersectional consumers
of a developing music genre. Some fans interviewed are neo-soul artists’ who themselves
create new works and engage counterpublic narratives. Others are professionals who
work within the music industry. Such intersectional identities often inform reception to
the music. Interviews with fellow fans were undertaken to probe the salience of messages
within the genre, to highlight how fans understand the stories of the genre, to inquire into
the balance of appreciation for musical accomplishments and lyrical shifts in the genre,
read against attention to potential pitfalls of the developing generic construct of neo-soul.
In addition to interview, analyzing videos from Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Jill
Scott, India.Arie, Angie Stone, Floetry, Marsha Ambrosius, and Ledisi reveal six music
video functions: (1) elicit nostalgia; (2) reference iconic Black (wo)men; (3) create
Black female space; (4) occupy social space; (5) disrupt social space; and (6)
reconfigure the Black woman’s position in a romantic relationships.
x
These six
functions engage the four Afrocentric philosophical ideals (Alkebulan, 2002; Karenga,
2002): 1) consciousness; 2) agency; 3) liberation; and 4) self-definition in a way that
creates new possibilities for Black female representation. Against its rap counterpart,
which academic Marquita Marie Pellerin (2011) concludes portray stereotypical images
of African American women in popular rap music videos, neo-soul music videos engages
several of the aforementioned functions to offer a range of diverse imagery not often
found in rap music visuals. Black women included in Pellerin’s (2011) study found the
depictions of African American women in rap music videos to be negative, hypersexual,
and inaccurate and neo-soul offers additional imagery to both rap music videos but also
other mediated imagery such as TV, film, and print.

10
At the end of this analysis I offer a new rhetorical perspective based in Black
publics that can be more broadly applied. This “neo-generic rhetorical perspective” not
only underwrites the study of genres centralized within the Black public sphere, but can
also may be extended to “transcultural” spheres (i.e., a 21
st
century adaptation of public
sphere diversity that revolves around political, social and economic exigencies rather than
solely identity politics), and used to study any genre and its movements (Horowitz
Associates, 2014).
The next sections present a review of the literature that identifies and describes
key analytical concepts for a neo-generic rhetorical perspective on neo-soul, highlighting
neo-soul’s rhetorical functions, its generic conception, relation to hip-hop, the Black
public sphere, the politics of respectability, popular culture and stigma as well as music
fandom. These concepts form a lens for the neo-generic theoretical perspective on neo-
soul and allows the critic to understand the temporal dimensions in which the music and
fandom for neo-soul arrive, thrive, and waver. Neo-soul artists and fans together create a
counterpublic with a complicated mission that while critiquing hip-hop and opposing the
politics of respectability seeks to articulate everyday life that invites powerful affective
recognition of meaning and engagement.
Neo-Soul’s Rhetorical Functions
Music is associated in many ways with the Black public sphere (Baraka, 1963;
Kelley, 1997; Lee, 2010; Perry, 2004; Pough, 2004; Redmond, 2013; Rose, 1994; Utley,
2012; Werner, 2006). Neo-soul adds texture, richness, and difference to Black rhetoric
and these traditions. Generally, black rhetoric, according to James L. Golden and Richard
D. Rieke (1971), features three strategic options: (1) assimilation, (2) separation, and (3)

11
revolution. Neo-soul reimagines these principles, and offers a fourth: innovation. In the
post-Civil Rights era, Black rhetoric is not about reaching any one particular goal in
isolation, but it appears to be about constructing and reconstructing communities, mainly
through securing and elevating hush harbor and womanist rhetorics. Through innovation,
neo-soul rhetors, present upgraded illusions of life that counter certain hegemonies in the
Black public sphere. While rhetorical forms such as oratory and rapping have been coded
as masculine spaces (Fraser, 1990; Perry, 2004; Roisman, 2005), neo-soul creates a
discourse that both challenges and innovates, taking up singing over speech as a form of
critical delivery.
The neo-soul label was a moniker created out of the commoditization of this
music (Frith, 1998; Mitchell, 2002). The term holds a deeper meaning than “new soul” to
be sold to a mass market. David McPherson, former executive Vice President and A&R
of Epic Records explains that at the heart of neo-soul is music that is “conscious-
driven…not just about shaking your booty or just talking about sex but about events
going on around you or about relationships” (Mitchell, 2002, p. 36). Neo-soul,
McPherson continues, “was created for artists whose music takes one back to ‘70s music”
(Mitchell, 2002, p. 36). This conscious-driven, ‘70s- inspired music is the same avenue
that allowed traditional Black female soul singers –such as Aretha Franklin, Nina
Simone, and Mavis Staples--to voice their lived experiences during the Civil Rights
Movement (Neal, 2002; Redmond, 2013; Ward, 1998; Werner, 2006).
When Aretha Franklin cried out for “Respect” in 1967, her rendition of the Otis
Redding single did not just define the energy and message of the Civil Rights movement
(Werner, 2006). Franklin’s cover also represented a brewing Black feminist politics--

12
demanding that Black women gain more value, power, and esteem within the Civil
Rights Movement. Aldon Morris (1986) noted in Origins of the Civil Rights Movements,
that Black women were often relegated to subservient positions. Through the calls of
Franklin, Simone, Staples, and their female contemporaries, Black women gained further
agency, visibility, positions of power, and a voice throughout the Civil Rights Movement.
Soul music became a site of visibility for and a way to give voice to representational
struggles of Black women. Neo-soul, like soul music before it, energizes music’s
capacities to promote visibility and voice as cultural weapons for the salient, emblematic
stereotypes that confronted Black womanhood (Neal, 2002; Redmond, 2013; Rose,
1994).
For this reason neo-soul can also be thought to function rhetorically as an
“ideograph” (McGee, 1980). Any ideograph is, a shorthand term that carries “the
normative, collective commitments of the members of a public… as the necessary
motivations or justifications for action performed in the name of the public” (Condit &
Lucaites, 1993, p. xxii-xiii). Neo-soul maintains its status as a symbol that gives space to
Black women in the public sphere. These women are under and often misrepresented in a
variety of music genres as well as within the political imaginary of the United States.
How do ideographs (McGee, 1980) work in the performance of popular culture, the art of
music, and in a misrepresented tradition? These are the questions that fans and artists of
neo-soul may give some insight into.
As an “ideograph,” neo-soul music offers a stylized voice and articulation of a
segment of Black experience. For example, in the song “Rasool” on her sophomore
album Beautifully Human: Words and Sounds Vol. 2 (2004), Jill Scott offers a harrowing

13
self-reflective recollection of drug dealings and murders in North Philadelphia. A
retelling of the lives of men trapped within the cycle of mass incarceration, Scott lays out
an in-depth tale of a man, Rasool, who was recently released from prison, only to find
himself selling crack again as part of the same “crew” from which he was originally
arrested, and subsequently incarcerated. Scott is certainly not the first to recount such a
tale. Literature reveals that rap music offers a myriad of songs whose lyrical content
concerns drug deals and amplifies the stories of successful dealers (Abdullah, 2006;
Dyson, 1995; Dyson, 2001; hooks 1994; Kelley, 1997; Neal, 2001; Perry, 2004; Pough,
2003, 2004; Rose, 1994; Utley, 2012). Scott, however, prefers to amplify the negative
aftermath of a drug-dealing lifestyle on the individuals and communities affected. This
strategy allows Scott to examine a particular slice of Black life in a way that the hip-hop
public sphere does not when prevailing songs glorifying such lifestyles resonate with
audiences and are, therefore, more commercially successful.
Neo-soul then, as Reiland Rabaka (2011) asserts:
“... is a hybrid musical form that re-centers the autobiographical and
sociopolitical singer-songwriter style of classic soul and, consequently,
many of its critics have stressed that it has a greater emphasis on lyrical
content or ‘conscious lyrics’ when compared with the pedestrian character
of most contemporary R&B. Also, neo-soul is known to be a concept
album-oriented genre...directly draws from the more ‘organic’ and
acoustic musical innovations and production techniques of classical soul
music....In an age of computerized and commercialized music, neo- soul
artists’ emphasis on an acoustic ‘band sound’ and message-oriented music
offers a much-needed alternative, not only to contemporary R&B, but also
to the blandness of commercial rap” (p. 170-171).

Admittedly, Rabaka’s evaluation of contemporary rap and R&B music as “pedestrian”
and “bland” may not hold true for fans of these musical genres. However, Rabaka’s
critique is in line with those of many neo-soul fans who cite similar qualms with rap and

14
R&B music and express their desire for something more “conscious,” organic,” or
“natural” (K. Singleton, personal communication, October 16, 2013). The music
industry’s discussion of neo-soul and these artists, oftentimes affirms the
commodification of neo-soul artists’ images and sounds as “organic” or “natural.”
(Rabaka, 2011). This discussion of neo-soul and the consequential public spheres the
genre engages and forms are important for the critic to acknowledge.
The Public Sphere
It is important to understand the theoretical underpinnings of the public sphere
before engaging the Black public sphere. In The Structural Transformation of the Public
Sphere, social theorist Jürgen Habmermas (1989) analyzed the rise and fall of the
bourgeoisie public sphere in Western Europe. Habermas (1989) defines the public sphere
as the sphere of private individuals who join together to form a “public.” One of the most
important aspects of the public sphere in the eighteenth century was the public use of
reason in rational-critical debate. For Habermas (1989), this feature scrutinized
domination by the state and criticized the illegitimate use of power. Rational-critical
debate occurred within the bourgeois public sphere in response to literature and the
spread of “literary public spheres” such as salons and coffeehouses (Habermas, 1989).
The public sphere developed outside of the private institution of the family and offered a
new space for discussions on art and literature to take shape critically, thereby promoting
democratic scapes of understanding. Habermas’s (1989) construction of the public
sphere was by definition inclusive, though entry depended on an individual’s educational
and property ownership qualifications. For Habermas (1989), the function of the public

15
sphere was to secure a place where members of civil society could articulate and debate
openly opposing and combined interests.
Black Public Sphere. The United States, too, developed a public sphere; but,
unlike that of Western Europe, that public was always marked by the early transformation
of free Black communities to slaves (Dawson, 2001; The Black Public Sphere Collective,
1995) and Native American genocide (Smith, 2010). The color line has always been a
problematic part of the American public sphere (Dubois, 1903) and in response, a Black
public sphere arose gradually over time to engage sites of contestation (Dawson, 2001;
Squires, 2002; The Black Public Sphere Collective, 1995).
The Black public sphere originated as a monolithic public for the engagement of
racial marginality, (Dawson, 2001; Squires, 2002; The Black Public Sphere Collective,
1995). It continues to grow and has evolved into multiple spaces and practices of
association--entertained by members of a similar affinity group but who differed in other
ways (i.e., class, gender, sexuality, political ideology, access, etc.). Thus, the more
singular Black public sphere of the 1950s and 1960s now spreads forward into multiple
contexts and activities, with circulation inside and outside of national and community
media (Squires, 2002). The crucial questions and challenges then: What are the activities
of these groups? What consensus exists among them? In Squires’ (2002) model,
marginalized publics (a term that replaces Fraser’s (1990) “counterpublic”) deploy three
different responding associations to dominant social pressures, legal restrictions, and
other challenges from dominant publics and the state. These three groupings are enclaves,
counterpublics and satellites.

16
Black publics might enclave themselves (or be forced into hiding) to remain
concealed in order to exist within oppressive regimes. Within enclaves, counterpublic
discourses and survival strategies are disseminated and lively internal debates are
generated. Enclaving depends upon securing safe spaces, hidden communications, group
memory, and hush harbor rhetorics (Nunley, 2007; Nunley, 2011; Squires, 2002).
xi
Black
publics might also form into a counterpublic. This association is characterized by
increased communication between the marginal and dominant public spheres when
members of the marginal group travel outside of enclaves, performing hidden transcripts
opaque to the expectations of dominant publics (Fraser, 1990; Squires, 2002). Such
counterpublic activities court exposure as well as increased participation from within and
outside their ranks. Though the counterpublic displays may seem like the best choices
available to resist dominate scripts, depending on the time, these are not without risks and
not always prudent (Squires, 2002). Counterpublics are susceptible to stylistic co-optation
by the dominant public or being affected unintentionally and undermined by interactions
with larger publics. Ongoing discussions and debates between Black leaders and different
communities may turn on a dialectic between assimilation and separation rhetorics.
Finally, Black publics sometimes satellite themselves. As Squires (2002) argues,
satellites take shape where a public, made up of collectives that desire to maintain a solid
group identity and build independent institutions outside of the larger public, do not
desire discursive engagement with the larger public. When these satellite interests
converge with others they may enter wider debates. Enclaves, counterpublics and
satellites work to extend Habermas’s (1989) original theoretical construction of the

17
public sphere which did not take into account axes of race, gender, sexual orientation,
and ability with differing modalities of being Black in contemporary democratic politics.
Charges against Habermas’s theorization (1989) are severe. Critics assert that he
makes assumptions that are hegemonic and invite misunderstanding of public space in the
United States--as a site of struggle for equality, recognition, power, and change (Frasier,
1990). Yet, Habermas (1989) contributes to the understanding of the literary public
sphere as the undoing of class in Britain. The American literary public sphere functions
with similar challenges to issues of exclusion in the Americas. This study extends
analysis of such counterpublic activity from the literary and discursive to the musical and
sonic.
The American public sphere, arguably, from time to time also attempts to modify
if not undo both class and racial barriers through music (Baker, 1984; Baraka, 1963;
Brooks, 2006; Brown, 2008; Jackson, 2000; Kelley, 1997, 2008; Ramsey, 2003; Von
Eschen, 2006; Ward, 1998). But the practices and forms of American public culture
appear to frequently appropriate Black culture and often even promote stereotypes
(Dawson, 2001, Pough, 2004; Rose, 1994, Squires 2006, The Black Public Sphere
Collective, 1995) Black Americans’ re-appropriation of entertainment particularly within
hip-hop culture constitutes a form of transgressive politics (Perry, 2004; Pough, 2003;
Pough, 2004; Rose, 1994; The Black Pubic Sphere Collective, 1995). Engaging in
transgressive politics and cultural re-appropriations along with some problematic gender
claims made along the way, hip-hop public culture offers female artists and fans a
complicated, complex space of engagement. This complex space appears to have

18
consequences for some segments of the Black public sphere that neo-soul seeks to
address.
Hip-hop, its Complexities & Consequences
Since the mid-1990s, hip-hop has come under intense analysis from academic and
popular critics alike (Chaney & Brown, 2015; Chang, 2005; Dyson, 1995; Forman &
Neal, 2004; hooks, 1994; Jeffries, 2011; Perry, 2004; Rose, 1994; Utley, 2012; White,
2011). Chang (2005), Dyson (1995), Forman & Neal, 2004, and Rose (1994) explain how
American political and economic climates during the late 1970s shaped the
materialization of hip-hop. Perry (2004) argues that the Black American take on the genre
elides hip-hop’s transnational roots. Jeffries (2011) investigates how the music controlled
and consumed primarily by whites, but mostly created and performed by Black men,
often advance stereotypical representations. White (2011) also analyzes how these
representations, both in the United States and abroad, contribute to the potential
demonization of young Black men. Utley (2012), on the other hand, explores how
religion plays a pivotal role within hip-hop culture, which further complicates our
understanding of rap music. Meanwhile, Chaney & Brown (2015) challenge our
understanding of Black motherhood as a marker of both oppression and empowerment in
rap songs. Either way, bell hooks (1994) makes an important contribution to the debate
when she defines hip-hop as an “outlaw culture.”
xii

A sort of recognition of a group’s own status as marginal in relation to
dominate culture and an accompanying response from the disenfranchised
group that moves away from a strategy that seeks inclusion into the
mainstream, instead embracing its own community values and standards
outside of those prescribed norms. (hooks, 1994 p. 6)

19
In addition, Abdullah (2006) presumes that a catalyst for hip-hop came from both Black
people’s exclusion from mainstream political participation as well as the decline of Civil
Rights and Black Power style protest movements. Ultimately, this dearth of recognition
inevitably birthed a new form of political expression, hip-hop and rap music.
Craig S. Taylor and Virgil Taylor (2004) argue that the rhetorical appeal of rap
music is its easily deliverable message to the listener through lyrics. This persona of the
artist and group in cultivating audience reception and enthusiasm is essential to the ethos
of hip-hop and other Black musical genres. Rap’s viability hinges on the ability of artists
to identify with the hard-core messages delivered by rappers who play in a consistent
style, write confessional lyrics, and generally live lives that parallel their music; (Balaji,
2012; Peterson, 1997). Hip-hop connects powerfully by ‘keeping it real’. The familiarity
of the themes expressed in the music allows for the listener to work out certain feelings
and emotions put into rhyme and rhymed with a beat that s/he was waiting to be voiced,
Rap music crafts an imaginary with consequences. In general, it joins with a
popular culture that hasn’t created as much room for diverse images of Black
womanhood. Weekes (2002) expounds upon the lack of positive role models for young
Black girls, reporting that “popular cultural representations of Black girlhood position
them as scantily clad consumers of hip-hop and reggae music, young black mothers and
social security dependents – representations that affect the types of identity young Black
girls construct and their attitudes towards sexuality” (p. 254). Weekes (2002) concludes
that young Black girls must work against such representations to construct healthy sexual
identities.

20
The images found in mainstream media and in most popular music have depicted
Black girls as overtly sexual. More recently Bettina L. Love (2012) investigated how
young Black girls (junior-high and high-school) from Atlanta find meaning in rap music
and hip-hop culture as related to their body image, gender, race, and sexuality. Love
(2012) highlights the contradictions in the girls’ observations about rap music –
underscoring how, despite the girls being aware of the ways in which Black women are
oftentimes negatively portrayed, they continue to listen to the music because of its
popularity, infectious beats, and belief that all of the women who participate in the hip-
hop industry are active by choice and not as a result of a possible larger oppressive
constraint system (sexism, racism, classism, etc). Love (2012) acknowledges that these
“young women are learning about their world in terms of race, class, sexuality, gender,
body, and success through mediated realities, which are made to oppress and exploit
them” (p. 86). In order to create a space where girls of color can develop their identities,
Love (2012) advocates for the teaching of hip-hop feminism through an application of the
critiques of gender roles and norms.
xiii
The hip-hop feminism that Love (2012) advocates
posits culture to be a pivotal site for political intervention. Popular culture may be a place
to challenge, resist, and mobilize collective public spheres that dismantle systems of
exploitation such as racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia (Durham, 2014; Peoples,
2008; Pough 2004; Pough, et. al, 2007).
Similarly, Pough (2003) finds that an absence of positive female role models and
messages for Black women characterizes hip-hop. She outlines the progression of hip-
hop from being about a ‘certified B-girl’ to being about ‘Gangsta Bitches’ and ‘hoes’.
While noting numerous disparaging depictions of women in mainstream hip-hop, Pough

21
does reference Queen Latifah and neo-soul artist Erykah Badu as positive exemplars of
Black female artists within the realm of hip-hop. She finds that Latifah and Badu offer,
“tools [that Black women] need to realize self-love” and that encourage Black women
reaffirm their self-worth (p. 240).
Pough (2003) observes avenues of agency within hip-hop, noting Erykah Badu, a
neo-soul artist in her analysis; but Rose (1994) discusses the black female body as a tool
of exploitation in hop-hop. For Rose (1994), black female bodies are exploited and
assumed inferior due to hip-hop’s explicitly sexual nature stylized in rap videos that
simultaneously commodify and devalue these bodies. Rose (1994) does read rap videos
as an opportunity for upward mobility for Black females who are shown in the visual
medium; but, she highlights the contention and conflict within hip-hop themes where
heterosexual black female identity is exploited for social gain. Love (2012) confirms
similar conclusions but offers hip-hop feminism as a way to trouble our understanding of
these music videos and the music. Rose (1994) concludes her examination with an
analysis of female rappers, illuminating their ability to reconstruct these exploitative
images through empowering lyrics-- enabling mental and physical freedom from typical
commercialized imagery. Rose (1994) reveals that although rap is a place for sexism and
misogyny, Black female rappers can transform an environment, overhauling the
patriarchal image into one that is more positive and, perhaps most importantly,
respected.
xiv
Following this lead, Durham (2010), Durham (2014), Peoples (2008), Pough
(2004), Pough, et. al (2007), and others argue for the potentially transformative nature of
hip-hop culture through the engagement of hip-hop feminism. Zenzele Isoke suggests in
Durham (2010)’s “Hip Hop Feminist Media Studies,” that “hip-hop feminism effectively

22
challenges and transforms power structures, social order, and widespread cultural
practices, and is proving to be an efficacious intersectional strategy for understanding
complex identities and difference” (p.134). While hip-hop’s public offers potential
transformative sites of counterpublic rhetoric by several artists, these spaces have been
limited. Neo-soul addresses these limitations on representation more broadly through
generating a style that expands lyrical and visual content.
Female Rappers’ Struggle for Reconstruction
The last section demonstrated that lyrics and visuals offer the possibilities of a
contested space within popular culture. Such possibilities are not likely to be realized
fully unless artists create and fans appreciate performances that vary and copy one
another, evolving a genre that grows in variety and acclaim. While Rose (1994) shows
that star Black female rappers can reconstruct the images of Black women within hip-
hop, she also points out the broader struggle that women face within these rhetorical and
cultural spaces. For instance, she notes that Black women are not encouraged to engage
in the discourse of musical mechanical equipment. They are barred access to informal
gathering spaces where shared knowledge and education about technological music
production and impromptu rap battles often took place. Due to foundational exclusions
within the genre, rap music and hip-hop culture are often labeled overtly misogynistic.
Though, as Rose (1994) acknowledges, this blatant attack of rap music’s apparent sexist
nature exists in part to,
deny the existence of a vast array of acceptable sexist practices that make
up adolescent male gender role modeling, that exist in other forms of
popular culture, due its hip-hop’s foundation within the Black male space,
female voices have (1) a hard time being heard, (2) if heard, are usually
co-signed by a male counterpart, (3) and within mainstream rap music,
typically fall within the archetype of the jezebel. (Rose, 1994, p. 15)

23

There is no doubt that hip-hop culture and rap music began as a stage for the powerless.
However, the literature reveals that women’s voices are disproportionately marginalized
in a genre that was crafted to give voice to the margins.
Perry (2004) further substantiates Rose’s claims through her analysis of hip-hop’s
desire to assert Black male subjectivity. “Black men as gendered and racial beings
occupy a specific, constructed and oppressed role in society, one from which they must
be liberated with a sophisticated political understanding of the grounds of their
oppression” (Perry, 2004, p. 119). Hip-hop, as Perry argues with the assistance of Dyson
(2001) and hooks (1994), is the space where Black men have sought liberation from their
constructed oppressed roles. Black men are subjected to the White male gaze that
feminizes them (hooks, 1994) and therefore, Black men have fought back by embracing
hip-hop as a hyper-masculine space. Hip-hop, therefore suffers from “femiphobia,” a
fear or distain for the female, as Dyson (2001) notes hip-hop’s creation and evolution as a
space for Black masculinity. Hip-hop is “gendered male” for Perry (2004) and other
noted scholars despite the presence of notable female rappers such as Lil’ Kim, Foxxy
Brown, Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, Da Brat, Missy Elliott and Rah Digga (p. 129).
Some mainstream female rappers occupy a space for critique within hip-hop
(Perry, 2004; Rose, 1994); yet their criticism is often muted due to the nature of the space
that calls out hyper-masculine behavior. Consequently, female rappers have to conform
to either the hypersexualized jezebel role (Lil’ Kim, Foxxy Brown, Nicki Minaji, and
Azelia Banks), or the female lesbian thug image (MC Lyte, Queen Latifah, Da Brat,
Missy Elliott, and Rah Digga), which further underscores the masculine genre
conventions. Ultimately, “either through style or content, [female rappers entered] spaces

24
gendered as male” by conforming to the norms and values that are inherent within hip-
hop (Perry, 2004, p. 160). On top of the politics of visibility within lyrical content and
image, female rapping credibility/ethos is doubted by default (Perry, 2004), fostering a
hostile environment for female artists that further confounds their abilities to reconstruct
the images of females within hip-hop.
Issues of sexism and representational politics have been raised within hip-hop.
These questions have not been addressed by changes in the music. Throughout this
potentially hostile environment, Kelley (1997) argues that,
The introduction of new discourse can, and has, proven an important
influence on the politics of rap music. Not only have black women rappers
played a crucial role in re-shaping attitudes toward women among a
substantial segment of the hip hop community, they are also largely
responsible for raising the issue of sexism in rap. (Kelley, 1997 p. 146)

Some women, who found themselves within hip-hop’s space (Angie Stone
1
, Laruryn
Hill
2
, Erykah Badu
3
, etc.), gravitated towards the newly coined moniker, neo-soul. The
new genre can be viewed as a place to continue the debate and criticism of hip-hop’s
representational politics of Black woman, while affording a welcome and visible
platform, from which their critiques would be heard and registered with the hip-hop
community. Kelley’s (1997) reference to “a substantial segment of the hip hop
community,” might refer to this very segment that morphed into the then burgeoning

1
Angie Stone was an original member of the hip-hop/funk trio The Sequence in the early 1980s before
moving to the R&B trio Vertical Hold, and then later establishing a solo career in neo-soul with the release
of her debut album Black Diamond (1999). Stone is also noted for sharing songwriting credits on
D’Angelo’s Brown Sugar (1995) and Voodoo (2000).
2
Lauryn Hill was an original member of the hip-hop group The Fugees before finding solo success with
her debut album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998), which finds itself included in the neo-soul
musical cannon; further illuminating the connection between hip-hop and neo-soul.
3
Before launching her solo career with Baduizm (1997), Badu, was a part of a hip-hop duo with her cousin
Robert "Free" Bradford. The result of the group’s success gained Badu a solo recording deal with Universal
Records.

25
culture of neo-soul (p. 146). Hip-hop though, is not the only form of public culture where
Black women have oftentimes struggled for representation.
Patriarchal and Feminist Hindrances to the Public Sphere
The relationship of popular culture and the political public sphere varies for
people across time. Popular culture has drawn great participation in the United States.
Black Americans participate, generate, and even define movements of popular culture,
but are not given the same access to the political public sphere. The Black public sphere,
therefore, works for self-expressions fusing music directly into a politics. All politics
have multiple dimensions; in a democracy, both emancipatory and restricting. Hip-hop
and neo-soul involves a complicated relationship, a struggle to capture its popular and
liberating themes while at the same time freeing its fans with its sometimes misogamist
trajectories. As in any movement, genre development takes place over time, finds its
common form, and varies. The varieties of cooperation and opposition and the mix are
the work of rhetorical inquiry—the music in the context of the artist.
The performance of song, music, and dance by entertainers has become a growing
part of popular culture, particularly as live performances, Internet streaming, and media
production interlink and expand on a global stage. Black entertainers participate in some
of the success and adulation. Pop stars Beyoncé, Rihanna, Janet Jackson, and the late
Whitney Houston, have enjoyed acclaim. However, public discourse surrounding the
Black body in performance is still cemented largely in deviant conceptions. For example,
when nude photos of Jill Scott leaked in the fall of 2014 as part of the nude celebrity
photo hacking scandal also referred to as “the frappening” (McCoy, 2014), there was
minimal outrage on Scott’s behalf coming from the mainstream American public sphere

26
when compared to her white counterparts such as Jennifer Lawrence. It can be argued
that the lack of public outrage over Scott’s vicitimization is due, at least in part, to
persistent mass mediations of the Black female body as the archetypes of the insatiable
Jezebel, the asexual Mammy, and the emasculating Sapphire.
xv

Politics of Respectability. The stereotypic portrayal of black women by the
entertainment industry has become the subject of feminist critique. In her treatise Black
Feminist Thought, noted scholar Patricia Hill Collins (1990) historicizes the nature of
controlling stereotypical images of Black womanhood and explains why this imagery
continues to operate today. Collins (1990) elaborates,
Race, class and gender oppression could not continue without powerful
ideological justifications for their existences...Portraying African
American women as stereotypical mammies, matriarchs, welfare
recipients, and hot mommas has been essential to the political economy of
domination fostering Black womenʼs oppression. Challenging these
controlling images has long been a core theme in Black Feminist thought.
(p. 67)

Joanne Nagel (2003) further contextualizes Collins’s claims, noting that

The roots of contemporary racism and racial conflict were planted early in
American history in sexual soil, they were fed by sexual fears and desires
and they thrived in an environment of lust, greed and demeaning sexual
stereotypes. To understand contemporary U.S. race relations it is
important to understand the role of sexuality in building and supporting
racial boundaries. Sexuality, in particular the sexual exploitation of slaves
with its associated intensities of appetite, shame and denial was and
remains a vital part of the U.S. racial order. (p. 125)

Slave owners essentially connected controlling images of Jezebel and Mammy to
economic exploitation of slavery while the matriarch and welfare queen were reified
throughout the 1970s and 1980s through social policy. The matriarch symbolically
justified Black male unemployment and psychological castration according to the now
infamous Moynihan report (Moynihan, Ranwater, & Yancey, 1967). These controlling

27
images of Black womanhood—Jezebel, Mammy, Sapphire and Matriarch—created
blueprints for public discourse representing Black female sexuality. When coupled with
societal systems of race, class, and gender, such imagery provides “effective ideological
justifications for racial oppression, the politics of gender subordination and the economic
exploitation inherent in capitalist economies” (Nagel, 2003, p. 77-78).
In addition, the relegation of Black women to the exterior of idealized femininity
by their White counterparts in public discourse distanced them further from the
“protective” bounds of womanhood. This lack of protection is evidenced in the (lack of)
reactions to Jill Scott’s leaked nudes even today. According to E. Frances White (2001),
“Black feminists of the first wave understood the costs of this label [of un-respectability]
to all Black women. They did not miss the irony in the contrast between the fiction of
Black menʼs molestation of white women and the very real rape suffered by Black
women” (p. 33). White is not the only scholar to articulate this standpoint. hooks (1981)
contends, “if they could not change negative images of Black womanhood they would
never be able to uplift the race as a whole” (p. 56).
To that end, the late 19
th
and early twentieth centuries saw increased scrutiny of
and advocacy for the formation of appropriate guidelines of behavior by Black women
who sought (limited) protection within womanhood. This historical push for an
appropriate behavioral code of conduct has become known as the “politics of
respectability,” per historian Evelyn Higginbotham (1993). According to Higginbotham
(1993), the politics of respectability finds roots in Black conservativism and the desire to
assimilate to white standards, particularly when the socio-cultural binary of Black female
sexuality was either virgin or whore. Higginbotham (1993) notes that Baptist

28
churchwomen, who were instrumental in Reconstruction and the integration of newly
freed slaves,
adhered to a politics of respectability that equated public behavior with
individual self-respect and with the advancement of African Americans as
a group. They felt certain that “respectable” behavior in public would earn
their people a measure of esteem from white America, and hence they
strove to win the black lower classʼs psychological allegiance to
temperance, industriousness, thrift, refined manners and Victorian sexual
morals. (p. 14)

The politics of respectability therefore, attempts to mitigate the stigma attached to
controlling imagery as a way for Black women to remove themselves from the
societal gazes and treatments that are linked to the Mammy, Jezebel, Sapphire,
and Matriarch. These four personas, when played out over time in entertainment
performances, reinforce negative views or “stigma.” Neo-soul attempts to distrust
these controlling images and reveal the complexities of Black womanhood.
xvi

Music and Social Change
Whether reifying or challenging, music is a medium where bodies are both
sonically and visually explored.
xvii
Hazel Carby (1989) reports that stereotypes
and controlling images communicated through music do much more than merely
stigmatize groups. Stereotypes and controlling images communicated through
music also disguise unequal social relations and reinforce the view that
differences are natural. Negative images are “designed to make racism, sexism
and poverty appear to be natural, normal and an inevitable part of everyday life”
(Collins, 1990, p. 68). These tribal stigmas then are steeped in a desire to foster
and maintain a social hierarchy because “those individuals who stand at the
margins of society clarify its boundaries” (Collins, 1990, p. 68).

29
There is hope, however. As Goffman (1963) explains, negative stigmas may
persist but are not fixed. Symbolic performances can serve counter-hegemonic functions,
enacting resistance and breaking the associations of identification. So, dis-identifiers aid
in creating and perpetuating doubt about the validity of an individual’s stigmatized
identity, Goffman claims. Rather than create a new stigma, these dis-identifiers call into
question the current ideological structures and discourse. Usage of dis-identifiers
transgresses the implied boundaries of negative controlling essentialized images.
Such strategies are not new within the history of American Black womanhood, of
course. The politics of respectability called for refashioning oneself to gain acceptance
into wider society—and so change how Blacks are perceived as a group. However, this
form of dis-identification does not challenge strongly enough the racist/sexist/classist
ideological underpinnings that created the initial stigma in the first place. Thus, the
hegemonic structure is never completely confronted. So, the stigma lingers in place even
if some of its force is mitigated. In a media age, Black Americans may become
increasingly aware of stigmas attached to their identities via the trope of synecdoche and
reversed through metonomy. In figuring the relation of whole and part, the negative
actions of a few are represented as typifying all. Consequently, self- re-figuring of
representation of the parts arises metonymically, as a way to protect “the race.”
xviii
New
music, new lyrics, new songs and fans are connected metonymically by enjoying neo-
soul and actively appreciating and creating resistance. Neo-soul offers a transgressive
blend of rap and soul music that showcases the dignity of the everyday life of Black men
and women.

30
Metonymic expression can be a resource for resistance, but like any trope that
figures into a style when it becomes too imitated and regularized it can also keep up false
appearances by subordinating, hiding, or systematically overlooking difference.
Regarding self-policing the race, Cathy Cohen (2004) explains the metonymic functions
of this action as it relates to the politics of respectability. In Deviance as Resistance
Cohen argues that the point of race-leaders was to sanitize and hide the non-conformist
behavior of certain members of the Black community. She elaborates:
respectability is understood as a strategy deployed primarily by the Black
middle class but also by other individuals across the Black class strata to
demonstrate their adherence to and upholding of the dominant norms of
society. It is hoped and expected that such conformity will confer full
citizenship status, bringing with it greater access, opportunities and
mobility. (Cohen, 2004, p. 35)

Cohen contends that Blacks who adopted respectability politics hoped for “full
citizenship status.” This expectation appears to have motivated Black calls for
assimilation. With “full citizenship,” and cultural acculturation Blacks hoped to gain
admission to the public sphere—the “arena, the training ground and eventually the power
base of a stratum of bourgeois men who were coming to see themselves as a “universal
class” and preparing to assert their fitness to govern” (Fraser, 1990, p. 60). The public
sphere, as Habermasʼs (1989) theorized, provides a space in which “private people come
together as a public; soon claiming the public sphere regulated from above against the
public authorities themselves, to engage them in a debate over the general rules
governing relation in the basically privatized but publicly relevant sphere” (p. 27).
Habermas’s theoretical conception, while ideal, contains several assertions that thwart
greater participation.

31
Four hegemonic assumptions appear to be in play: (1) the premise that the
possibility for participants in a public sphere requires communicative functioning among
social equals; (2) the assumption that multiple, competing publics are detrimental to
democracy; (3) the assumption that discourse about private interests and issues in the
public sphere is undesirable; and, (4) the assumption of the civil society is necessarily
divided from state institutions in the public sphere. As previously mentioned, several
scholars have sought to explore the existence of real, multiple publics, counterpublics and
enclaves that create and inform larger articulations of discourse and offer promising
routes for marginalized voices, such as those offered by neo-soul. For Asen & Brouwer
(2001), however, there is an additional element. They assert that “[t]he first key move in
rethinking the public sphere more inclusively entails discerning the public sphere as a
multiplicity of dialectically related public spheres rather than a single, encompassing
arena of discourse” (Asen & Brouwer, 2001, p. 6). Through their reconfiguration,
counterpublics exist and can exhibit oppositional discourse while accounting for the
numerous significant exclusions that exist within the theoretical confinement of a single,
monolithic public sphere.
Rhetorical and cultural critics also note that Habermas’s original conception
fosters exclusions along gender, class and racial lines and that these exclusions defied the
implicit claim of accessibility. For gender as Fraser (1990) outlines, “public speech and
behavior was promoted, a style deemed “rational,” “virtuous,” and “manly”: making the
construct of the public sphere a masculine space that excluded the voice of women (p.
59). Through the construct of acceptable speech patterns within the public sphere that
created a raced-gendered exclusion, Black and other rhetorics of color were also cast as

32
angry, militant, irrational, unreasonable, aggressive, divisive, unpatriotic, and dangerous
(Fraser, 1990; Jackson & Richardson, 2003; Nunley, 2011). With regard to class, the
public sphere was seen as the “training ground, and eventually the power base of a
stratum of bourgeois men… [The public sphere] was implicated in the process of
bourgeois class formation (Fraser, 1990, p. 60). Through these exclusions within identity
politics, a call for multiple public spheres creates a public that is capable of representing a
multicultural society with diverse interests that bridges the gap between different
standpoints while attempting to define a collective interest. If the public made up of a
variety of public spheres then is unable to take up this task, the counterpublics that exist
within the paradigm will act in an orientation to voice concerns.
xix

Despite the renewed options available in multiple discursive spaces, these outlets
often upheld politics of respectability even at the turn of the twenty-first century. As
public sphere scholar Gwendolyn Pough (2004) asserts in Check It While I Wreck It:
Black Womanhood, Hip Hop Culture and the Public Sphere, when Blacks gained access
to segments of the public sphere they sought to disrupt stereotypes by “claiming control
of the public gaze and a public voice for themselves” (p. 16-17). Pough (2004) argues
that this was accomplished through “spectacle,” writing, “one has to be seen before they
can be heard” (p. 21).

Pough (2004) contends that Black adoption of middle class ideals
was a form of spectacle to show the dominant society that Blacks were able to integrate
into their world post-slavery. In their attempt to dismiss stereotypes about Black female
sexuality, middle-class policing oftentimes reinforced these archetypes, ostracizing those
who did not fit the respectability of the Black lady. E. Frances White (2001) contends
that early Black women leadership “needed to attack the ideology behind the good

33
woman/bad woman dichotomy. [Instead, many] struggled to have Black women
reclassified as good women rather than expose the bankruptcy of the entire system” (p.
31). Neo-soul attempts to expose the system through its lyrics, visuals, and fandom,
offering a Black feminist critique.
Black Feminist Critique
The desire to define Black womanhood and “tell these women their place” has
long been a struggle within the Black public sphere. Michael Dawson (1995) explains
that
bourgeois masculinist norms were argued to be appropriate for regulating
Black discourse and participation by some Black and mainly male leaders.
The adoption of the norms from the dominant society shifted Black
politics from the type of inclusionary participatory debate...during the
early stages of Reconstruction, to the consistent attempts described by [Ida
B.] Wells and others to limit the participation of women in Black public
discourse. (p. 204)

Black women have had, and continue to have limited participation within the Black
public sphere. Black womenʼs unique position in multiple subjugated identities (i.e. race
and gender and oftentimes class, sexuality, religious affiliation and/or nationality)
informs a more inclusive and complex point-of-view. As noted Black feminist Audre
Lorde (1984) concludes, “too often Black feminist theorists are shut out from the Black
community for being seen as derailing or shifting the focus from race and of not adding
depth and complexity to the communityʼs understanding and ultimately bashed into
silence” (p. 120). These Black women although discouraged continue to forge on.
Black women have fought against patriarchal norms of the Black community that
suppress the role and issues of Black women. Dawson (2001) argues.
Black feminists became increasingly dissatisfied with the lack of political
attention devoted to issues that had particular significance for them and

34
with patriarchal ideologies being used as a weapon to justify their
subordination in Black nationalist and church-based formations, as well as
in some Black left organizations. The vulgar and brutal misogyny of Black
leaders such as Eldridge Cleaver and Stokely Carmichael further fueled
the explosion of Black feminist and womanist organizations, literatures,
presses and debate. The increasingly vocal position advanced by some
African Americans that the surest way to understand the Black condition
was by understanding the intersection of race, gender and class with White
supremacist, patriarchal and classist systems of stratification that mapped
the terrain of American society clashed with openly patriarchal analyses of
the Black condition by many Black activists and intellectuals. (Dawson,
2001, p. 41)

Confronted with opposition toward an agenda within the Black public sphere, feminists
constructed subaltern counterpublics that addressed the needs of Black women who felt
excluded from both the Civil Rights Movement and women’s rights. As critical race
studies and legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw (1991) outlines, “the narratives of gender
were usually based on the experience of white, middle class women and the narratives of
race, on the experiences of Black men” (p. 1241-1258). Therefore, these women sought
spaces that concerned narratives of both gender and race that engaged the experiences of
Black women.
One of these subaltern counterpublics was constituted by Black women writers
within the hip-hop public culture, who raised their voices to challenge stereotypical
images of Black womanhood and Blackness in general (Pough, 2004). Black women
advocates,
used theoretical tools such as writing essays and editorials as well as
making speeches to a variety of audiences. They saw the spoken and
written word as preambles to making changes in larger society. These
women articulated resistance against stereotyped images of both Black
women and the Black race, navigating the written and spoken word in
order to achieve their goals. They made style of strategy by omitting,
displacing, falsifying and –when the need arose—accommodating. They
carved out spaces for themselves and demanded that they be heard.
(Pough, 2004, p. 42)

35

Pough explores many facets of hip-hop public culture including rap music, novels,
spoken word poetry, hip-hop cinema, and hip-hop soul music. She provides a useful
study of the scope of opposition in popular culture at the expense of an intensive
investigation of any particular site of opposition generally. In particular, she does not
address neo-soul music and fandom and the impact of this music and its fandom on
resisting the controlling images that are linked to the degradation of the Black female
body and sexuality.
Noted Black feminist scholar Hortense Spillers (1992) launches a critique that is
more aggressive than Pough’s (2004). Unlike Pough, she targets the constrictive space of
Black female sexuality. “Black women are the beached whales of the sexual universe,
unvoiced, misseen, not doing, awaiting their verb...Thus, the unsexed black female and
the supersexed black female embody the very same vice, cast the very same shadow
inasmuch as both are an exaggeration” (Spillers , 1992, p. 76). Spillers reveals that since
there is no space within the public sphere for Black women to define themselves, there is
likely no real sense of Black womanhood in American society. Supporting Spillers’s
argument, symbolic interaction clarifies what happens when stigma is internalized as the
obsession with how one is perceived clouds ones definition of one’s self. Shayne Lee
(2010) reasons that respectability politics persuades Black women to “accept sexual
chastity for the greater good of social responsibility” (p. viii) and to “suppress erotic
expression and advise those around them to do the same” (p. ix). To the contrary, Carby
(1998) and Ward (1998) consider music fandom as a way to escape the politics of
respectability, and neo-soul serves as one such contemporary place.

36
Popular Culture and Music Fandom
Literary scholar Hazel Carby (1998) highlights the limitations of Black middle-
class ideals and responses to black women’s sexuality through the literary cannon and
Black blues women singers. Blues women embodied an explicit alternative form of
representation through an oral and musical culture that highlights the contradictions of
feminism, sexuality and power when compared to how Black women were represented in
print. “The blues singers had assertive and demanding voices; they had no respect for
sexual taboos or for breaking through the boundaries of respectability and convention,
and we hear the “we” when they say “I” (Carby, 1998, p. 482). Carby’s (1998) historical
account of blues as a space for female power and control over sexuality prior to the Great
Depression also reveals how Black female fandom historically has worked as a space for
fans to escape from society’s controlling images as well as politics of respectability that
were perpetuated by the Black middle-class. Carby (1998) also demonstrates how one
form of fandom, a literary one, did not serve the same functions as blues music due to
“[t]he women blues singers occup[ying] a privileged space; they had broken out of the
boundaries of the home and taken their sensuality and sexuality out of the private into the
public sphere” (p. 481). With class politics centrally mitigating the difference between
the literary and blues musical cannons during the Great Depression, Carby argues that
race, class, gender and sexuality intersect through the enjoyment and pleasure of blues
music. She also reveals how Black women utilized their fandom of the blues to construct
a space otherwise unimaginable to them during the turn of the twentieth century.
Essentially, blues music then, represented what Jenkins (1992) would categorize as an
‘alternative social community’ for Black women just as neo-soul might offer now to

37
women engaged within hip-hop as well as larger public spheres, offering a space for
these women to engage in their lived experiences publicly.
Over time, Black music has given rise to alternative communities of interest. Like
blues and its publics, Ward (1998) finds that the development of “R&B, black rock and
roll, black pop, soul, funk, and disco” (p. 2) have “achieved their popularity precisely
because they have dramatized and expressed, but also helped to shape and define a
succession of black consciousnesses” (p. 15). Ward (1998) shows how developments in
R&B (musical score and lyrics) mirrored changes in the worldviews and social positions
of Blacks in the last half of the twentieth century. He tracks the developments in mass
black consciousness during the years of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements.
He offers an appreciation for the history of R&B through situating the music within the
context of race relations during this historical period. Ward (1998) concludes that Black
popular musics directly reflected a Black consciousness of shared racial identity and
empowerment through celebratory psychological affirmation of social experiences and
cultural styles.
Ward’s history invites my extended inquiry into music fandom and Black
consciousness. Updating Baraka’s thesis from Blues People (1964), Ward (1998)
underscores how music is central to the understanding of race in the United States.
Fandom and race are intertwined. The scarcity of studies on popular music fandom
constitutes one of fan studies Achilles heals. Duffett (2013b, 2013c) concedes that
popular music fandom scholars have never had a strong disciplinary framework within
which to place their audience work, rather tending to focus on the text (musicology) or
production and distribution (sociology). Thus, this project strikes a balance between the

38
text and the production and distribution of the neo-soul genre with a focus on the fandom
surrounding the genre.
Music fandom, Duffett (2013b) argues, “is one term for a wide range of
phenomena and identifications occurring in a variety of different times and places, a term
that encompasses a range of tastes, roles, identifies and practices” (p. 7). Thus, music
fandom as Duffett (2013b) outlines and Ward (1998) contends can be explored as a set of
cultural convictions that combine affective engagement, musical appreciation, music
practice, celebrity-following, social networking, dancing, memorabilia collecting, and
self-expression. Fandom is both personal and collective. Using Ward (1998) as a
situational framework to analyze neo-soul music fandom through a racial consciousness
lens aids in filling a gap in research that neglects the intersection of race with fandom
(Gatson & Reid, 2011) and in popular music writ large (Duffett 2013a, 2013b, 2013c).
Consequently, this study not only seeks to fulfill gaps in the field, but also to expand our
understanding of the Black public sphere through neo-soul’s discourse and fandom.
Conclusion
Rhetorical inquiry into the development of neo-soul affords an opportunity to
appreciate how Black public culture and Black feminists of the “Third Wave” and hip-
hop feminists responded to the ideological underpinnings of the politics of respectability
and created for and with their fans, emancipatory possibilities in coming to terms with the
possibilities and vicissitudes of everyday life.
xx
This study illuminates the foundation of
the neo-soul genre musically, lyrically, and visually, as well as through its growing
fandom.

39
This dissertation investigates how Black women create counterpublic spaces of
resistance against controlling images and push back against the masculinity in hip-hop
and the larger culture. Through opposing stigma and controlling images within the public
sphere, neo-soul artists and fans modify and extend public culture in ways that create a
greater appreciation for the vicissitudes of everyday life.
Chapters Two, Three, and Four focus on the unfolding of the genre through four
of neo-soul’s dynamics: lyrics, music, visuals, and fandom. In order to reveal the unique
sonic, visual, and lyrical frameworks embedded within neo-soul’s culture, Chapter Two
centers on the foundational musical work of Erykah Badu (Baduizm, 1997). Taking up
Jill Scott’s Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1 (2000) and India.Arie’s Acoustic
Soul (2001), my third chapter considers neo-soul’s political and social transformations
and the growing Black female fandom surrounding the culture. Continuing the temporal
examination of neo-soul, my fourth chapter explores Scott’s The Real Thing: Words and
Sounds Vol. 3 (2007) and Erykah Badu’s New Amerykah Part One (4th World War)
(2008) to investigate the sonic, lyrical, and visual evolution of the genre, while observing
the alternative social community that formed around it. My final chapter discusses future
prospects for neo-soul amidst the emergence of alternative rhythm and blues (R&B) or
Pabst Blue Ribbon Rhythm and Blues (PBR&B), through the works of Marsha
Ambrosius’s Friends & Lovers (2014), Jazmine Sullivans’ Reality Show (2015), Jill
Scott’s WOMAN (2015), and Erykah Badu’s But U Caint Use My Phone (2015).
Engaging with the musical score and lyrical shifts of these later works, I argue that neo-
soul and its fandom are not only still active but are also rhetorically innovative—even

40
though a more popular PBR&B genre offers a predominantly commoditized and racially
sanitized musical form.
This dissertation reveals how neo-soul artists and fans choose to interpret and
change both the dominant and Black public sphere perceptions of them as Black women.
Thus, these artists and fans perform neo-soul to center Black women’s issues and
concerns within Black public sphere rhetoric. As the subsequent chapters unfold through
the creation, development, apex and future of the genre, this dissertation examines how
the Black public sphere formed around neo-soul, as it serves a popular political function
by encouraging community building, identity construction and reconstruction, critiques
of public representations of female blackness, and the encouragement of Black romantic
love. Neo-soul, offers a potential glimpse into the complexities of contemporary Black
womanhood and an examination of politics of counterpublics within the larger Black
public’s rhetorical landscape. Looking at the lyrics, music, visual representation, and
fandom of neo-soul will foster a more detailed understanding of the recovery and
opposition the genre offers while providing evidence of how counter the music is heard,
appreciated and received from its fandom within the Black public sphere.

41
CHAPTER TWO
“On & On”: Neo-soul’s foundation

When Erykah Badu appeared on BET’s Planet Groove in 1997 to promote her
then forthcoming debut album Baduizm, she made it clear that a shift in the musical
landscape had arrived. Through her interview with Planet Groove’s host Rachel
Stuartfarrell, she announced her inaugural project, “I feel like this is where I need to be
right now because music is kind of sick… it’s going through a rebirthing process and I
find myself being one of the midwives aiding in that rebirthing process.” Kedar
Massenburg would soon label this rebirthing movement neo-soul (Mitchell, 2002).The
label Queen of neo-soul would soon identify Badu’s connections to her fans and the
public.
Neo-soul soon was seen to have even earlier beginnings. The genre term was
retroactively applied to an array of albums and artists: D’Angelo’s debut album Brown
Sugar (1995); Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite (1996); and, artists such as Omar, The
Fugees, Dionne Farris, Jamiroquai, and Me'Shell NdegéOcello. These artists were said to
have laid the groundwork sonically and lyrically for the musical movement of neo-soul.
Erykah Badu’s breakthrough album was regarded as special, still as its sales solidified the
neo-soul movement’s commercial visibility in the mid to late 1990s (D. Bernarr, personal
communication, April 10, 2015; A. Maddox, personal communication, March 26, 2015;
A. Troutman, personal communication, April 3, 2015). The set’s accompanying singles
“On & On,” “Next Lifetime,” and “Otherside of the Game” shaped and defined what a
neo-soul aesthetic would be. Subsequent releases from Lauryn Hill (The Miseducation of
Lauryn Hill (1998)), Jill Scott (Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1 (2000)), Badu

42
(Mama’s Gun (2000)), and India.Arie’s (Acoustic Soul (2001)) highlight that mainstream
neo-soul was a predominantly Black female led music genre with Erykah Badu at the
forefront.
Inspired in part by Brandy’s self-titled 1994 debut album (Badu, 2012), Erykah
also noted in a 2011 Fuse interview that African roots inspired a large portion of
Baduizm:

If the headwrap was my trademark, the drums, African drums, were my
soundtrack. I never really thought about a lot of the things people labeled
my lyrics for music as. ’94 to ’97, I was at a really interesting place in my
life. I was embracing, very much, my culture, my African heritage, which
is one part of me…Africa has always been a staple in my household and in
my life. The drums mean an awful lot to me. It’s just who I was at the
time, and I wanted to be completely who I was when I did what I did.
(Horowitz, 2011)

The drums are central to Baduizm’s sound. Starting and ending the album with
“Rimshot,” a double entendre on drumming, “Rimshot,” like the rest of the songs on the
album is about a young women trying to make sense of her world, her sexual
relationships, as well as finding herself. The technical term ‘rimshot’, which Badu flips to
refer to a sexual experience, is when a drummer hits the center and the rim of the snare
drum at the same time. The drumming of the intro and outro “Rimshot” of course features
rimshots and this drumming technique can be heard throughout Baduizm including the
set’s lead single “On & On,” which she co-wrote with JaBorn Jamal. Lyrically, “On &
On,” explores the teachings of the Nation of Gods and Earths (also referred to as the
Five-Percent Nation) referencing the group’s theology of Supreme Mathematics which is
a system of understanding numerals alongside concepts (1 – Knowledge; 2 – Wisdom; 3
– Understanding; 4 - Culture/Freedom; 5 - Power/Refinement; 6 – Equality; 7 – God; 8 -

43
Build/Destroy; 9 – Born; 0 – Cipher) (Christensen, 1997; Tate, 1997). Regarding her
own lyrical interpretation of “On & On,” Badu said, “I like to leave the interpretation of
the lyrics up to the listeners, but I'll say ‘On & On’ is the teaching of everyday life and
karma through mathematics… the song keeps dropping different jewels of information
and belief that I've compiled during my life” (Christensen, 1997).
On her live album aptly entitled Live (1997), Badu further opens up about her
breakout debut single “On & On” during the reprise and makes the connection to the
Nation of Gods and Earths further.

Y’all know what a cypher is? It’s all kinds of cyphers. But a cypher can be
represented by a circle, which consists of how many degrees? What? 360
degrees. And my cypher keeps moving like a rolling stone. So in my song
when I say that, my cypher represents myself or the atoms in my body and
the rolling stone represents the Earth. The atoms in the body rotate at the
same rate on the same axis that the Earth rotates, giving us a direct
connection with the place we call Earth; therefore, we can call ourselves
Earth. (Badu, 1997)

Badu’s explanation after performing “On & On” underscores the Nation of Gods and
Earths connotations of the lyrical content. In the Nation of Gods and Earths theology,
Black women and men are the original humans, made in the image of God. Black women
are “Earths” and men “Gods.” Through her self-reflexive first single, Badu as she stated
in her July 1997 interview with Joy Bennett Kinnon for Ebony Magazine, treats her
“listeners like intelligent people” and challenges them to engage in potentially new
concepts and seek out information about and from the Nation of Gods and Earths (p. 37).
The music video for “On & On,” that Badu directed that pays homage to Alice Walker’s
The Color Purple is also vital to the impact that this song and Badu’s career have had on
music listeners.

44
In the music video for “On & On,” Badu is depicted as a maid in a Black rural
household in the late 1800s/ early 1900s, cleaning up the house, doing laundry, and
attempting to put a little girl’s hair into a ponytail. At the end, Badu emerges from her
chores in a green dress and gele headdress performing in a barn turned juke joint. The
video for “On and On,” Badu’s first visual statement creates a space of agency,
complicating and resisting the onslaught of controlling images (mammy, matriarch,
jezebel, sapphire, welfare queen) of how Black women are seen and represented.
Badu in “On & On,” also touches upon four of the six neo-soul music video
functions that I have discovered while reading across the genre. In “On & On,” Badu (1)
elicits nostalgia through the loosely based connections to The Color Purple; (2) disrupts
social space through her appearance in the juke joint (3) references iconic Black women
through iconography of famous blues women who would often perform in such spaces as
barns; and (4) hybridizes a Black female space through both her chore work as well as
performance.
Through the lyrical content and visual of “On & On,” Erykah creates a
framework for fellow neo-soulsters Lauryn Hill, Jill Scott, India.Arie, Floetry, and others
to freely express themselves lyrically, musically, and visually in a space that would
quickly be defined as neo-soul. In the same Ebony Magazine interview, Badu resists the
newly minted neo-soul label, “No one asks a bird the explanation for the song; they just
enjoy it” (p. 36). While neo-soul music is a pleasure to hear, it is also intends to
complicate, challenge, and interrogate conventional understandings of life. Erykah
Badu’s debut album Baduizm (1997) does just that and her body of work continues to

45
engage in a dialogue/conversation with her listeners, always pushing our understanding,
wisdom, and knowledge as she herself continues to grow.

“Baduizm is an expression of me and the way I feel. Badu is my last
name. Izm is well should get you high and Baduizm are the things that get
me high. Lighting a candle, loving life, knowing myself, knowing the
creator, loving them both, lighting incense, um building bridges,
understanding, destroying bridges, overstanding, um using my melanin,
using my power to get to where I need to go and to do the creator’s work.
That’s what I’m here for and I’m still fly.” (E. Badu, Planet Groove, 1997)

Baduizm is an expression of who Erykah was in the mid 1990s, and the continual
connection that fans and music listeners have with the album is a testament to the
elicitation that the album has for fans, pushing them to think, challenging their
conceptions, and creating new knowledge for generations to come (Bird, 2003, Duffet,
2013a; Duffet, 2013b; Duffet, 2013c). Before delving further into Baduizm, it is
important to revisit the musical landscape that supported the foundations and provided
the frameworks for the mainstream neo-soul movement.
This chapter explores the sonic legacy and early neo-soul sounds through the
initiating performances of Erykah Badu’s Baduizm. I analyze the functions presented in
neo-soul music, the imagery that unfolds in music videos. I speculate on why early fans
were drawn to the music and culture labeled neo-soul. This section begins this
exploration into neo-soul’s past and humble beginnings through Erykah’s Baduizm. This
is the music that laid the foundation for her mainstream debut album’s monumental
impact. D’Angelo is often referenced as the mainstream beginnings of neo-soul;
however, Erykah Badu’s Baduizm is widely acknowledged as the mainstream beginning
of what would come to be known as neo-soul (D. Bernarr, personal communication, April
10, 2015; A. Maddox, personal communication, March 26, 2015; A. Troutman, personal

46
communication, April 3, 2015). The neo-soul movement evolved into critiquing several
patriarchal narratives offered by mainstream Black popular culture, resisting hegemonic
constructions of sexuality and gender, and recasting some Black women’s life narratives.
Erykah Badu’s Baduizm is the ideal place to begin to understand how the critical agenda
began. As the focus of this project centers on Black female cultural production within
neo-soul in the Black public sphere, this chapter centers on Badu’s debut album with
references to Lauryn Hill
xxi
. Therefore, this chapter traces neo-soul’s beginnings, engages
its distinct sound, and analyzes Baduizm as it laid the sonic, lyrical, and visual foundation
for future neo-soul music.
Neo-Soul’s Beginnings
Erykah Badu released “On & On” in December 1996. The beginnings of neo-
soul’s sound likely had already begun, some say. For example, Anthony Maddox, owner
of VH1 Soul locates the origins of neo-soul through British soul singer Omar stating that
his album For Pleasure was the antithesis of the sound and movement.
So, believe it or not, neo-soul really started with a guy out of Britain
named Omar, who [is] sort of the antithesis of D’Angelo and all those
other guys, Maxwell, before they came out, the guy in Britain named
Omar. He had an album called… For Pleasure. Probably, like ‘95, ‘96,
you know, before the whole, you know, sort of concurrently, with like, the
whole Kedar Massenburg era. But it was really just an emergence of, you
know, on the heals of New Jack Swing, which was Teddy Riley and then
you had Kedar that sort of came out with this whole, you know, there was
so many people. There was Donnie, there were a lot of folks from Atlanta
that sort of had this really, paid this homage to Donny Hathaway and to
Sam Cook and Otis Redding and all these other sort of soul legends. And
really refining and playing around with this new sound called neo-soul.
(A. Maddox, personal communication, March 26, 2015)

Released in 1994, For Pleasure relies heavily on live instrumentation fused with the
popular synthesized sounds of the New Jack Swing era. The double bass (upright bass) is

47
prominent throughout For Pleasure’s sonic mixture including singles “Saturday” and
“Keep Steppin’.” “My Baby Says,” “I’m Still Standing,” “Little Boy,” and “Confection”
further center the upright bass within the sonic formula of Omar’s music mixing sounds
keen to jazz with more familiar New Jack Swing and rap musical elements. This pre-
commercialized formula of neo-soul was distinct from the establish confines of New Jack
Swing, rap, as well as soul music.In 1997 such a style began to be labeled neo-soul
following the release of Erykah Badu’s debut album (Kinnon, 1997).
Neo-soul offered a significant but indefinable alternative to the established
confines of soul or rap music. Rap and soul have always advanced in conversation with
one another. Before neo-soul, there had never been a distinctive music genre that
endeavored to explain and transcend that conversation. Neo-soul exists uniquely at a
convergence point of these musical traditions. Neo-soul is neither simply soul music that
reflects the evolution of the genre (Cunningham 2010) nor is it an offshoot of rap music.
Rather neo-soul constitutes an amalgamation of these two sonic discourses into a musical
genre that speaks to and across the aesthetics of both soul and rap music
simultaneously.
xxii

Cultural critic Nelson George (1988), outlines some of the early foundational
music of neo-soul such as ‘retronuevo.’ For George (1988), this term stands for “black
music that appreciates its heritage [and] emerged to bring back some of the soul and
subtlety its audience deserves” (p. 186). Artists such as Frankie Beverly and Maze, Anita
Baker, Prince, and Michael Jackson are some of the artists that George holds represent
the ‘retronuevo’ vibe. Erykah Badu and D’Angelo as well as their later counterparts,
Lauryn Hill, India.Arie, and Jill Scott evolved the genre with subsequent releases. These

48
early artists (Maze, Baker, Prince, Jackson) are marked for their abilities to croon out a
soulful opus, one minute; then, lead a protest charge the next (George, 1988). While the
vocal styling and influences from the 1960s through the early-1980s music genres are
still overtly present for singers found with neo-soul, additional components, including
hip-hop’s musical influences and the focus on lyrically driven compositions, have
evolved George’s ‘retronuevo’ into neo-soul.
In actuality, neo-soul is not a new term, as Massenburg would lead you to believe
(Mitchell, 2002). It can, in fact, be traced back to a Washington Post article in 1987 on
Force M.D. In the piece, journalist Joe Brown praises the rapper’s turn as a singer on
Touch and Go (1987) proclaiming the album to be “superior neo-soul.” Though Brown’s
connotation of “neo-soul” is left ambiguous, Force M.D.’s blurring of rap and soul music
leads one to believe that this early form of “neo-soul” is a hybrid of rap and soul music. It
is clear, though, that the “neo-soul” that Brown describes is different from that of hip-hip
soul
4
, which was already emerging before Force M.D.’s Touch and Go with the releases
of Chaka Khan’s “I Feel For You” and “I’m Every Woman,” both crafted by ‘retronuevo’
artist Prince. In addition to its early appearance in 1987, a 1992 Entertainment Weekly
article proclaimed British soulster Ephraim Lewis as a “Neo-soul singer with a flair for
memorable melodies” and Bjork’s debut album, oddly enough entitled Debut (1993), was
also noted in The Jerusalem Post by Tizrah Agassi as possessing this same musical flair.
These earlier exemplars of neo-soul, pre-Badu’s Baduizm, do not take visionary
credit away from Kedar Massenburg, or his stable of artists (D’Angelo, Erykah Badu,
India Arie) that initially defined the genre. The lack of clarity in the early usages of the

4
A music genre often connoted with R&B vocal styling over rap beats. Mary J. Blige is often referred to as
the Queen of hip-hop soul because her discography fuses rhythm and blues/gospel singing with hip-hop
production.

49
label suggests that definition, shape, and style stress discussion and development of the
genre. In this regard, neo-soul should not be dismissed as modern soul music or simply a
marketing ploy that is used to push record sales and new artists. Though Massenburg did
coin the term as a marketing gambit during its inception, such genre beginnings are not
unique to neo-soul (Mitchell, 2002). In Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular
Music, Simon Frith (1996) describes the generative place of marketing strategy,
“[T]urn[ing] music into a commodity, is solved in generic terms. Genre is a way of
defining music in its market or, alternatively, the market in its music” (p. 76). Fans and
music industry executives did gravitate towards developing the genre and marketing term
“neo-soul” as a genre entangled musical with live instrumentation and narratives of social
consciousness. Some music critics see these kinds of distinctions as providing only a
loose definition, awaiting refinement.
Genre definitions risks either being too refined, thereby functioning as a barrier to
development or being too broad inviting a distinctive style to be diluted, warped and
assimilated into ambient sound. Media scholar Phillip Lamarr Cunningham (2010)
contends, for example, that the neo-soul label “is indiscriminately applied to numerous
artists is only one of the genre’s many problems. What makes the term so problematic is
the popular belief that it is a new form of R&B/soul rather than a continuance” (p. 241).
Cunningham (2010) makes a temporal argument that neo-soul is contemporary soul
music that reflects and advances this music’s tradition. As such, neo-soul is said to also
exist through the musical works of artists including Allen Stone, Leela James, Joss Stone,
Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings, who reflect and advance soul music for contemporary
audiences though who do not engage lyrically or sonically with hip-hop. These artists--

50
like classic soul artists, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, and Stevie Wonder--maintain the
tradition of live soul instrumentation with lyrics focusing on love and community.
Cunningham’s critique appears to beg an important critical question on genre.
Neo-soul is an intersectional form, so distinctive boundaries constituting a genre are hard
to draw. Steven Feld (1984) identifies genres by the ways in which artists, musicians,
fans, and the industry reify and differentiate a particular blend of music, lyrics, and
stylistic performance from existing sounds, to ultimately create a discourse about the
music. Feld also notes that comparisons turn upon how music is interpreted. The process
of differentiation may emphasize oratorical, visual, or sonic expressions or some blend
while also identifying an audience that self-subscribes to the genre term.
Rhetoricians Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and Kathleen Hall Jamieson (1978) further
corroborate Feld’s argument, referring to genre as a classification based on the “fusion
and interrelation of elements in such a way that a unique kind of rhetorical act is created”
(p. 25) The metaphors of genres as “constellations” for Campbell & Jamieson (1978)
serves to explain how genres, like constellations of stars, are constructed of individual
members, but are under the influence of each other and outside elements. Genres, like
constellations, move together and as a result, “remain in a similar relation to each other
despite their varying positions over time” (p. 25). Therefore, when a generic becomes
defined, such as neo-soul, a critic argues “that a group of discourses has a synthetic core
in which certain significant rhetorical elements, e.g., a system of belief, lines of
argument, stylistic choices, and the perception of the situation, are fused into an
indivisible whole” (Campbell & Jamieson, 1978, p. 21). Rhetorician Carolyn R. Miller
(1984) argues similarly that genre must be centered on substance or “the action it is used

51
to accomplish” (p. 151) Thus, topical constraints should be added to stylistic resonances.
Topics are resources from which invention draws upon moving experiences to identify
life-world disturbances, evocations, and movements. I hold that neo-soul’s generic
construction centers topically on its system of beliefs that articulate a Black experience,
while critiquing patriarchal narratives, resisting hegemonic constructions of gender and
sexuality, and reinventing Black women’s narrative rationality. Neo-soul also offers
music and visual choices that fuse the musical works into an indivisible whole that, much
like constellations of stars, remain in relation to one another across their temporal
positioning.
Campbell & Jamieson (1978) identify three criteria to constitute a genre:
substance, style, and situational elements. The substance of neo-soul revolves around the
lyrical content that performs community building, an identity construction and
reconstruction, the critiques of public representations of female blackness, and the
encouragement of Black romantic love. Its style is in its musical scores that originate with
a sonic formula that incorporates a rimshot snare, a fender Rhodes piano, and a bass
guitar as its central compositional structure. Over time this style evolved to incorporate
also horns, acoustic guitars, as well as numerous other instruments and sounds. The
situational elements of neo-soul address its counterpublic fans. The situational urgencies
revolve around the limited inclusion and rich capacities of Black female voices in
mainstream popular culture and public spheres. One of neo-soul’s calls-to-action is to
expand the visual and musical affordances of Black females in public and popular
representations. The genre often modifies its substance and style through the variance of

52
these elements within performances identified as part of the genre and against outside
shifts in related genre’s style, substance, and situated audience address.
The study employs Sellnow’s Illusion of Life Rhetorical Perspective (1996) as a
guide to analyze substance and style of a musical genre, ultimately linking substance to
the virtual experience and style to virtual time. These virtual experiences revolve around
a multitude of topics that draw audience and fandom activities. Neo-soul is a distinctive
but blended genre in that in addition to its topics it incorporates sonic elements from hip-
hop (including backbeats and sampling that differentiate the two musical groupings).
Genre growth, variation, and synthesis invite rhetorical analysis of popular music, more
generally. While neo-soul began as a marketing term, other genres that are now taken for
granted such as rock and roll, salsa, and R&B all have similar generic stories. These
genres, like neo-soul, grew past their marketing tendencies and formed cultures around
the definition of what it meant to be a part of the genre. Like most genres during their
inceptions, uncertainty, pushback, and debate are inevitable, from critics as well as those
whose performances have been identified with the term.
When asked about the genre while promoting his sophomore album Voodoo
(2000) D’Angelo replied to the New York Daily News, “I was listening to other artists that
were influencing me to go in that direction, like Tony! Toni! Tone! and Raphael Sadiq
[sic]. I don’t even know who came up with the term.” Later in a 2014 interview with
Nelson George for the Red Bull Music Academy, D’Angelo further displayed
ambivalence. “I plead the fifth, really,” D'Angelo said, when George asked about the
label that defined his sound. “I don't want to disassociate, and I respect it for what it is,
but any time you put a name on something, you put it in a box…. I never claimed I do

53
neo-soul. When I first came out, I said, I do black music” (George, 2014). Badu also
expressed reticence to accept the identity. During a 2008 interview with MSNBC.com
she muses, “What’s funny about neo-soul is that I don’t even know what it means…I
know what the two words mean, but that term was thrust upon me by Kedar Massenburg,
who is the president of the label that signed me” (Turner, 2008).
While two of the pioneering artists neo-soul are ambivalent about the term, it is
important to understand the stylistic interstices of rap and soul music from which this
genre borrows. Craig Werner’s A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race & The Soul of
America offers a great place to start. Werner analyzes and traces the formation of soul
music in America while looking at the genre as a conduit for hidden and expletive
messages about political and social change throughout its existence. This text looks at
soul’s gospel, blues, and jazz influences on Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Sam Cooke, and
James Brown, to name a few, while chronologically moving the timeline of Black
musical traditions from gospel to present day hip-hop and R&B via a conclusion
grounded in an analysis of Lauryn Hill’s landmark solo debut album The Miseducation of
Lauryn Hill (1998). Werner begins his historical examination of soul with an
investigation into the three musical impulses (gospel, blues, jazz) that make up soul
music’s legacy.
Werner (2006) remarks that “The gospel impulse consists of a three step process:
(1) acknowledging the burden; (2) bearing witness; (3) finding redemption” (p. 29).
Relying heavily on the scholarship of Ralph Ellison’s Shadow and Act, Werner affirms
what the blues and jazz impulses are, which, in tandem with gospel, help to create a
foundation for soul music.
xxiii
The blues impulse “consists of (1) fingering the jagged

54
grain of your brutal experience (2) finding a near-tragic, near-comic voice to express the
experience; and (3) reaffirming your existence” (Werner, 2006, p. 69). To flesh out soul,
jazz’s constant process of redefinition factors into the musical experience; thus,
reworking one’s “identity on three levels: (1) as an individual; (2) as a member of a
community; and (3) as a “link in the chin of tradition”” (Werner, 2006, p. 132). The
“Queen of Soul” Ms. Aretha Franklin is famous for adapting these musical influences, as
are her counterparts and successors in their music. If one is to put on the ‘45 of Aretha’s
classic remake of Otis Redding’s “Respect” or turn to the song on her iPod or iPad, these
three influences are evident in Franklin’s vocal intonations, phrasing, lyrical delivery, and
the Otis Redding penned lyrics themselves.
For Janderie Gutierrez, a background singer and neo-soul fan based in New York
City, neo-soul builds upon this legacy of soul music with a keen focus on jazz.
Neo-soul to me is just a modern day version of soul music, obviously neo
you know but it’s bringing in a different kind of influence…I don't think
[it] is just your typical artist with a heavy gospel influence. If you listen to
the majority of soul music there’s a heavy, heavy, heavy influence of
gospel in it. From riffing to the yelling, to the calling and the response…
that’s all gospel music…. Soul music is just taking the influence of gospel
music and applying it to I guess to a modern or every day sort of like
situation. You know now it’s just secular music, now you’re taking all of
that influence and putting it in soul music. Neo-soul on the other hand it
comes from sort of that generation of people that grew up listening to soul
but are now infusing it with modern…with maybe a influence of jazz,
percussion or you know with other different elements in instruments and
also vocal styles…like Jill Scott [and Erykah Badu] if you listen to the
way she sings, she has a very jazzy voice, so there’s definitely an
influence of jazz in the neo-soul type of music. So I find it’s a little bit
more infused where you just feel sort of that richness and that soulfulness
behind it you know. (J. Guiterrez, personal communication, February 24,
2015)
As Janderie pinpoints, neo-soul artists do not only pull from soul music, which builds
upon gospel and jazz, but they also incorporate jazz percussion and vocal stylings within

55
their compositions. Erykah Badu’s Baduizm pulls centrally from the jazz music tradition
through her vocal phrasing. Her ability to perform with a three-piece band (bass, drum,
and piano) on her Live (1997) album further underscore this inherent connection to jazz
as Badu is operating within a traditional jazz band trio though her band references rap
music which also pulls from the legacies of soul music and jazz.
Building upon the legacy that Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Ray
Charles, Otis Redding, and others pioneered, hip-hop, and more specifically rap music,
came to prominence in the South Bronx during the 1970s. As Tricia Rose (1994) points
out, deindustrialization leads to the rhythms of hip-hop culture which “attempts to
negotiate new economic and technological conditions as well as new patterns of race,
class, and gender oppression in urban America by appropriating subway facades, public
streets, language, style and sampling technology” among other appropriations (p. 22).
Rap’s impulse featured anti-establishmentarianism at the onset of the genre. Rap
succeeded as a “black cultural expression that prioritiz[ed] black voices from the margins
of urban America” (Rose, 1994, p. 2). Expanding the impulses of soul music, rap
deployed new technological advances --like synthesizers, beat machines, and sampling--
to reinterpret soul music during the 1970s, labeled as the beginning of the “post-soul” era.
The post-soul era was marked by Blacks’ unprecedented acceptance into
mainstream society. Nelson George writes in the Village Voice (1992) “The Complete
History of Post-Soul Culture,”
The term “post-soul” defines the twisting troubling turmoil-filled and
often terrific years since the mid-seventies when black America moved
into a new phase of its history. Post-soul is my short-hand to describe a
time when America attempted to absorb the victories, failures, and
ambiguities that resulted from the soul years. (p. 20)

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The post-soul era also impacted the musical composition of soul music, by removing the
live instrumentation that had become customary to the sonic discourse of soul. In The
Death of Rhythm and Blues, George (1988) laments the changing sonic discourse during
the onset of the post-soul era by mentioning that “Synthesizers of every description, drum
machines, and plain old electric keyboards began making MFSB [a crew of Philly
musicians] and other human rhythm sections nonessential to the recording process” (p.
181). Studio musicians were sacrificed and replaced by the latest technology, thereby
altering the sonic landscape of soul music. Concurrently, lyrical compositions themes
within the soul tradition were placed under stress with a direct, confrontational, face-
driven style.
Nelson George noted the decline of lyrical compositions within the musical
fusion. “[I]n the eighties, songwriting went right down the toilet as the balance between
riff and melody went awry. Fewer and fewer songs were written from an adult point of
view” (George, 1988, p. 181). The degradation of the lyrical content within this early
hybrid of soul music would go on to become one of the biggest flaws of post-soul era
music. Iterations of new music that built upon the ‘retronuevo’ style such as neo-soul
would make lyrical content a cornerstone of their musical genre. Due to subsequent
technological advances, soul shifted into hip-hop along, with a series of new anti-
establishment topical themes. At the same time as lyrical decline within ‘retronuevo,’
new gains in technology expanded an energetic sonic landscape that pushed musical
innovations.
Opportunities driven by technologies generally have uneven gender outcomes.
This appears to be true for the music industry as well. In this new sonic landscape, the

57
Black female voice was diminished. Female rap artists appeared to be set aside. Tricia
Rose (1994) points out that women were not encouraged to engage in the discourse of
musical mechanical equipment. They are barred access to informal gathering spaces
where shared knowledge and education on technological music production took place.
The lack of women’s foundational voices within the musical genre has induced
critics to assert that rap music and hip-hop culture are characterized by overtly
misogynistic themes. Though, as Rose (1994) acknowledges, this blatant attack of rap
music’s apparent sexist nature exists in part to “deny the existence of a vast array of
acceptable sexist practices that make up adolescent male gender role modeling that
results in social norms for adult male behaviors that are equally sexist, even though they
are usually expressed with less profanity” (p. 15). Although hip-hop culture and rap
music began as a stage for the powerless, women’s voices were disproportionately
marginalized in a genre that paradoxically was crafted to give voice to the margins.
This contemporary stage of hip-hop that empowered the marginal would later
become popular with the masses and cross over into the mainstream.
xxiv
Hip-hop’s
acceptance into the mainstream had to do with its driving appeal. Craig S. Taylor and
Virgil Taylor (2004) argues that rap constitutes an “easily deliverable message of the
author or artist to the listener” through the lyrics (p. 252). Fans relate to the anti-
establishment messages delivered by artists, who present themselves as hard-core
performers (who play in a consistent style, write confessional lyrics, and generally live a
life that parallels their music). Hip-hop and other musical genres that feature this
approach are able to capture antagonism, and blunt discussions better than those that do
not, and the familiarity of the themes expressed in the music allows for the listener to

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gain understanding of certain feelings and emotions that they might not otherwise know
how to express. Rap music’s acceptance into the mainstream had an impact on the genre,
and the entrainment industry as a whole in the 1990s.
Herman Gray (2004) notes in Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for
Blackness that:
Indeed, by the 1990s, film, advertising, fashion, and television all felt the
cultural forces of blackness through rap. Rap, like film articulates claims
on blackness that, in the end, are powerful wagers for control over its
representation, meaning, and use. These claims are constructed at social
(schools, neighborhoods) and cultural sites (film, television) and in terms,
assumptions, and representations filled with tension and contradiction.
(53)

The rise of rap music and hip-hop culture into the mainstream is directly responsible for
the formation of neo-soul which, in part, works to reclaim hip-hop culture by bringing it
back to its roots of the 1970s.
xxv
Rap music’s commoditization stripped the music of key,
vital elements in bridging rebellion with the dominant culture. This co-opting resulted in
a diluted brand of commercial rap music, passed off as ‘the real thing.’ Ultimately,
mainstream rap music was transformed, repackaged, and delivered with little evidence of
its remnants that were embedded in Black cultural, historical, and musical experience and
legacies that were rooted in the onset of rap music (Toop, 1984).
Rap shifted its paradigm in an effort to broaden and homogenize its fan base
during the late 1980s and early 1990s.There was a call within Black musical production
for music that reiterated rap music’s onset vocation of political action and storytelling.
These features had dissipated during the commercialization of rap music. Rap was a
means of protest among inner-city Black and Puerto Rican youth in the South Bronx
(Rose, 1994). As rap’s popularity spread among youth of all different races, classes and

59
nationalities, the messages being illuminated by later mainstream rappers became diluted
and focused on blended lyrical content that spoke to street credibility as well as the
highly commercialized and commoditized hustler protagonist (Lena, 2006). Rapper Rick
Ross literally created his persona and image to gain street credibility. A former
corrections officer, William Leonard Roberts II derived his stage name from the former
drug kingpin "Freeway" Rick Ross in his attempt to garner more mainstream success.
The commercialization of rap music does not affect the entire discography of
major label rappers, of course. Rap continued as its own genre, and it should be
remembered, “its artistic expressions of joy and resistance have always spoken to
adolescents” (Gordon, 2005, p.387). Hip-hop culture is, first and foremost, a culture and
genre of music that was rooted in Black adolescent culture (Gordon, 2005, Rose, 1994),
however. With its roots in adolescent culture, and acting as a companion during difficult
times in life, rap music, as a whole, does not fully offer a place for life to be faced in its
totality, “and our ability to live with an adult sensibility of not being alone requires a
maturation of mundane life – one that is not escapist but at the same time not devoid of
play” (p. 387). While I would argue against Gordon’s (2005) claims that rap music
functions as a strictly escapist art, I do agree that maturity of lyrical content offers a
problem to at least some of its maturing fans. For those who did find a call to realities
expressed by the music, these aging fans often may have searched for salient messages
within the genre, relevant to concerns developing later in life. Therefore the need for a
genre of music that spoke to more varied maturing sensibilities thus opened.
Rap, hip-hop—neither were regarded as enemies nor ugly competitors by the
artists tasking a different turn. Angie Stone, one of the forbearers of neo-soul and a

60
member of both the rap and neo-soul music scene, stated during a concert: “I ain’t hating
on hip-hop… But we grown up” (Sanneh, 2007, B5). Stone speaks directly to the
adolescent impulse that is called to expression by the rap genre. She offers neo-soul as a
way to take the music, her music, further. She implicates the genre in rap music’s
periphery and offers neo-soul as an extension. Its own sonic style, topics, lyrical
discourses occupy productive spaces between soul and rap music.
The Neo-Soul Sound
Neo-soul came into its promise as a recognizable genre under Keder
Massenburg’s tutelage. This is not to say that the sonic and lyrical attributes that make up
this genre did not occur long before 1997’s Baduizm or before it was retroactively applied
to D’Angelo 1995 LP Brown Sugar. To sonically trace when the inception of the neo-
soul sound began, one should look to what Nelson George defined as ‘retronuevo,’ in
addition to the post-soul era that occurred during the 1980s and early 1990s with
subsequent releases from Prince, Tony! Toni! Toné!, Terrence Trent D'Arby, and Mint
Condition. Subsequently, Raphael Saadiq would break away from Tony! Toni! Toné! and
contribute majorly to the sonic discourse of neo-soul as a producer and solo performer.
Prince can possibly be identified as the godfather of neo-soul, as Christopher John Farley
(2001) notes of his contributions. “[B]efore there was a name for it, Prince had been
carrying a torch for neosoul for decades, refusing to make R&B that played by the rules
or fit into comfortable formats. In the mid-‘90s, he was suddenly joined by a host of other
soul artists who also wanted to break boundaries” (Farley, 2001, p. 56). Prince laid claim
to this fusion of funk, blues, jazz, rock, soul, R&B, and later rap, several UK acts
including Sade, Soul II Soul, Caron Wheeler, The Brand New Heavies, Young Disciples

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and Omar Lye-Fook a.k.a. “the father of British neo-soul” helped formulate what would
go on to become the familiar sonic and lyrical compositions that would encompass the
neo-soul genre (Cordor, 2011).
Anasa Troutman (2015), president of Soulbird Music and India.Arie’s manager
further underscores this point.
Because like for me like these are conversations about neo-soul like the
…. grandparent of neo-soul is soul music it's like obviously, '60s, the '70s
soul music from African-Americans artists obvious is the grandparent of
neo-soul. But the parent of neo-soul is British soul like without a doubt in
my mind. So like all this the stuff that is going on in London like the
Dave Treble Quartet, Omar, Vanessa Simon, Jolisa… [were] all of our
favorite music. Jamiroquai like when they came to town we were all in the
front row at those shows… And all of these artists like Lewis Taylor like
all these people were – were what we're looking [at]. We weren't listening
to the radio. We weren't listening to whatever was popular in the early
‘90s. We were listening to British soul. (A. Troutman, personal
communication, April 3, 2015)
British soul acted as a model for future neo-soulsters and created space for fans that were
interested in something other than what was on the radio at the time to create from. Anasa
Troutman, one of the forefront business and cultural minds behind the movement in
Atlanta wholeheartedly feels that without British soul, there would have never been a
neo-soul movement or sound. “Neo-soul would have been nothing without British soul.
Like I – I'm totally convinced of that, totally convinced (A. Troutman, personal
communication, April 3, 2015). In addition to these UK acts, during the early 1990s, the
burgeoning sonic genre saw additional releases from Groove Theory, Joi, The Fugees,
and Me'Shell NdegéOcello among others, who all helped to cement what the impending
landmark neo-soul releases (D'Angelo's Brown Sugar (1995), Maxwell’s Maxwell's
Urban Hang Suite (1996), Erykah Badu's Baduizm (1997) and Lauryn Hill's The
Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998)) would sound like.

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So what does neo-soul sound like? The sound has three moves: (1) rap backbeats;
(2) sampling; and (3) live instrumentation. Neo-soul is a genre that is an amalgamation of
rap and soul music, which relies on technological advances made during the genesis of
rap, but at the same time it readily uses live instrumentation of the soul era. Neo-soul
builds upon sampling through its own reinterpretations of soul records such as Erykah
Badu’s take on Atlantic Starr’s “Touch A Four Leaf Clover” aptly entitled “4 Leaf
Clover” or Lauryn Hill’s Frankie Valli cover of “Can't Take My Eyes Off You”. Though
these two are traditional covers, Badu and Hill infect a hip-hop backbeat that is heavily
pronounced throughout most neo-soul records. Hill’s cover of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off
You” in particular opens up with beatboxing, which then leads into the sonic composition
of the song and melds into a traditional rap backbeat. Though covers are not unique to
this genre, when they occur within the discourse of the genre, the musical composition of
the song is often tweaked to reflect the sonic amalgamations that define the genre.
Sampling is also a modern occurrence within the genre, engaging samples from a
variety of genres, artists, and decades. As Werner (2006) outlines:
At its best… sampling encourages a living communication between past
and present that recalled the dynamics of Western African cultures. In
contrast to “progress-oriented” Western processes, in the Yoruba approach
the most recent version does not replace or correct the previous work.
Rather it adds new layers, allowing movement between new versions and
earlier statements, which remain intact. Their energy, which is understood
as a direct response to both their immediate context and the ancestors,
remains available at all later stages of the process. Like a Yoruba song,
sampling allows descendants to respond to previous works of art by
incorporating elements of those new works into their “new” creations. (p.
357-358)

Neo-soul artists, like rap musicians who were part of the Hip-Hop Generation, use
samples to communicate with their elders in music--while at the same time building upon

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the legacy of this music. Erykah Badu is no stranger to sampling, using a sample of
“Family Reunion” by The O'Jays (1975) on “Otherside of the Game,” as well as
“Summer Madness by Kool & the Gang (1974) on “Certainly (Flipped It),” which both
appear on Baduizm (1997), Though one could go on for pages listing the numerous
samples within neo-soul songs, it is blatantly evident that rap music’s keystone of
sampling has had an indelible impact on the neo-soul sound.
Rap’s sonic influences of sampling and the amalgamation of a traditional hip-hop
backbeat within neo-soul are clear indications that neo-soul is entrenched within the
discourse of rap. Also, the appearance and features of neo-soul singers on traditional hip-
hop records, as well as rappers appearing within the confines of neo-soul, whether
through a feature or within their own work that blurs the boundaries of rap and neo-soul,
indicates a blatant conversation that neo-soul and hip-hop are having. Lauryn Hill is a
prime example of this convergence, as she began her music career with the hip-hop trio
The Fugees and would later go on to release the most critically and commercially
acclaimed album within the neo-soul discourse, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998).
Hill’s stature as a hip-hop heavyweight is felt throughout her debut solo studio album as
she mixes the genres of rap and soul in a venue that offered her a place to both rap and
sing. As Werner states (2006), “hip hop and soul belong together. Just as Stevie grounded
the jazz and blues moments of Songs in the Key of Life in an abiding sense of redemptive
possibility, Hill places the gospel impulse [and rap and soul music] at the center of
Miseducation” (p. 359). Through Hill’s heavy flirtation within her debut solo album, she
was able to expand the conversation between rap and the then burgeoning genre of neo-
soul.

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Amidst Hill’s Miseducation, other convergences were happening between rap
music and neo-soul. This convergence was highlighted primarily through the formation
of The Soulquarians. The Soulquarians were a neo-soul and rap musical super-group
which formed in the late 1990s and created/produced several well-received hip-hop and
neo-soul albums (The Roots’ Things Fall Apart (1999), D'Angelo’s Voodoo (2000),
Common’s Like Water for Chocolate (2000), Erykah Badu’s Mama's Gun (2000), Bilal’s
1st Born Second (2001), The Roots’ Phrenology (2002) & Common’s Electric Circus
(2002)). Self-identified and not a title imposed on the collective, The Soulquarians
composed of Questlove, Bilal, Common, Erykah Badu, D'Angelo, James Poyser, Mos
Def, Q-Tip, Talib Kweli, Pino Palladino, and J Dilla, represented a merger of the two
genres into a production group that would define the sonic quality of music that
overlapped between these two musical traditions. Personified by individuals who hailed
from Philadelphia, New York, Detroit, Richmond, Brooklyn, Chicago, Dallas, and
Oakland, The Soulquarians exemplified the birthing of neo-soul, not from a certain
locality, but as a shared experience of the adoration of hip-hop and soul. As journalist
Greg Kot (2000) noted in his piece on the music collective:
Many of these artists have performed on one another's records, creating a
community of likeminded musicians forging a style that doesn't have a
name yet. Organic soul, natural R&B, boho-rap--it's music that owes a
debt to the old-school sounds of Marvin Gaye, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix
and George Clinton without expressly mimicking any of them. It refreshes
these traditions with cinematic production techniques gleaned from hip-
hop and with attitude that is street- smart but above all highly individual,
celebrating quirks instead of sanding them down for mass consumption.
Instead of crooning about booty and blunts (sex, drugs, etc.), the subject
matter on these albums is idiosyncratic and personal, ranging from the
spiritual crises of [Lauryn] Hill, D'Angelo and Maxwell to the socio-
political concerns of the Roots and Mos Def.

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This nameless style that Kot was referring to is neo-soul and Kot (2000) later recognized
this during the same article on D’Angelo when referencing that “the neo-soul movement
brings with it a refreshing irreverence for production sheen.” The sonic quality that Kot
illuminated is the essence of neo-soul, a genre that coexists at the crossroads between
soul and rap. The Soulaquarian’s transcendent impact underscores what I would consider
the “Golden Era” or apex of the genre (1999 – 2002).
During the height of popularity for this genre, neo-soul songstress Jill Scott
released her debut album Who Is Jill Scott?: Words and Sounds, Vol. 1 (2000) and further
makes the connection with rap blatant. On the Hidden Beach Recordings set, “Jilltro”
introduces the listeners to Scott and the continuation of the neo-soul sound. Scott
rhythmically commands the following lyrics on the hip-hop flavored beat, which came
courtesy of fellow Philadelphians Andre Harris, of Dre and Vidal fame, and Darren
"Limitless" Henson, of DJ Jazzy Jeff’s Touch Of Jazz studio.
(Inspiration)
It comes from listening to Hip-Hop
(Inspiration)
It comes from R&B
(Inspiration)
It comes from listening to Jazz
(Inspiration)
It comes from Jill, you hear me?

Scott is featured as the lead MC during the her introduction a.k.a. the “Jilltro,” which
then leads into the familiar hybrid sounds of neo-soul that had been molded and
established by her predecessors. Scott, like Badu and Hill before her continues the sonic
fusion of soul music with hip-hop. A Touch of Jazz was one of the epicenters for neo-
soul as Grammy-nominee Marsha Ambrosius revealed to me through her own labeling of
neo-soul when she was with the group Floetry.

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Neo-soul was a term allegedly coined by Kedar at Motown. Prior to us
considered mainstream enough to be marketed, we considered ourselves
Floetic. Floetry was ours. Once lumped into what was happening in music
at that time, there was a resurgence of soul, new soul, neo-soul. And we
were a part of that movement by default. Same producers, same city etc.
The industry puts you where they want you. People do the same. I was
cool with it as long as you could find us. (M. Ambrosius, personal
communication, February 28, 2015)

For Marsha and other artists during the genesis of the genre, as long as their music was
heard, they did not quite mind what it was being labeled, though as outlined above,
hesitations still lingered.
Armed with a deeper understanding of the lineage of neo-soul, it is important to
revisit Erykah Badu’s Baduizm (1997), which truly underscores the early roots of neo-
soul. While D’Angelo’s Brown Sugar (1995) and Maxwell’s Maxwell's Urban Hang
Suite (1996) are important albums that shaped the neo-soul movement of the mid to late
1990s, both albums were retroactively applied with the term neo-soul after Erykah
Badu’s debut was labeled as birthing a new genre by Kedar Massenberg (D. Bernarr,
personal communication, April 10, 2015; D. Jones, personal communication, April 13,
2015; A. Maddox, personal communication, March 26, 2015; A. Troutman, personal
communication, April 3, 2015). Therefore, the rest of this chapter centers on interrogating
neo-soul through Erykah Badu’s Baduizm.
Badu’s -izm
With Baduizm, Badu’s sound fuses jazz, R&B, and hip-hop in its musical score as
well as Badu’s vocal phrasing, delivery and melodies. The scatting that Badu often
utilizes on Baduizm (“Appletree,” “Certainly,” “4 Leaf Clover,” “No Love,” “Drama,”
“Sometimes…” ) and other music projects and live performances, inspired the singer
born as Erica Wright to change her name to Erykah Badu “as a teenager – “kah” for inner

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self” and “ba-du” after the scat singing of great jazz vocalists” (Waldron, p. 62, 2001).
Often compared to Billie Holiday (Christensen, 1997; Kinnon, 1997; Norment, 1997;
Planet Groove, 1997; Tate, 1997) vocally, Badu later told Soul Express Magazine (2001)
that her “major influences in music are Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, Miles Davis,
Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, a lot of jazz musicians [and] soul musicians, like
classic soul, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, you know. People like that. People that were
able to bring out emotion in people… Bob Marley.” Besides trying to emulate Chaka
Khan and Stevie Wonder, during an interview with Greg Tate (1997) for VIBE Badu
opened up about trying to pretend to sing like a horn and “listening to Miles Davis and
Bird and Al Jarreau with my uncle” (p. 85). This emulation of horns can be heard in
Badu’s vocal sliding where she often slides note to note and her love for Chaka Khan and
Stevie Wonder is audible within her range which begins with low sultry chest voice
murmurs akin to Stevie Wonder to her earth shattering high falsetto, likened to Chaka
Khan’s eerie ability.
While Badu shares similar musical influences as D’Angelo and Maxwell
(Christensen, 1997; Mitchell, 2002), what sets her apart from the early works of
D’Angelo and Maxwell are her lyrical slants (Christensen, 1997). D’Angelo’s debut
album focuses on the themes of love, relationships, and religion with a sprinkling-in of
Black cultural references. Maxwell, who actually recorded his debut album before
D’Angelo’s Brown Sugar (Turnbull, 2012) riffs on similar lyrical themes while turning
up the focus on sex. Baduizm at its core is about a self-reflexive grio sharing her
knowledge about relationships, love, spirituality, and life.

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Baduizm begins with “Rimshot (Into),” which pair’s Badu’s sweet soprano with
the scat-infused infectious hook ‘Rimshot, hey, diggy diggy, a rimshot, hey, come on’
over a controlled bassline and simple percussion. Clocking in just under two minutes,
“Rimshot (Intro)” moves effortlessly into Badu’s signature tune “On & On.” Featuring a
three-note bass riff and a repetitive rimshot, the song at moments feels sparse and allows
Badu’s jazz influenced vocals to take center stage. Originally recorded with her cousin
Robert "Free" Bradford when she was involved with the rap duo Erykah Free (Tate,
1997), the song was intended as a positive message to let people know that even though
there are struggles in life, you have to keep moving ‘on and on,’ while keeping your head
up. Released as Erykah’s debut single, “On & On,” remains the song for which she is
arguably best known. The reasons for this are numerous, but it probably has to do with
the combination of ambiguous lyrics, the simplistic melody and musical score, the
captivating hook, as well as the fact that “On & On” captured a moment in popular
music; ushering in a popular sonic moment of neo-soul.
For Dedry Jones, owner of the independent music store The Music Experience in
Chicago, neo-soul also stemmed from Erykah Badu who “in a lot of ways [is] a little
different than other singers… that terminology came into play right when Erykah Badu
came out and then they wanted to dump D’Angelo in that group” (D. Jones, personal
communication April 13, 2015). Durrand Bernarr, an Erykah Badu fan, a background
singer for Badu, and an independent artist echoes this sentiment stating that his “earliest
recollection… of neo-soul would be Erykah Badu’s Baduizm” (D. Bernarr, personal
communication, April 10, 2015). Durrand further delves into the topic of neo-soul and
Erykah’s position within the legacy of the genre:

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And I have to say this, is that people think that Erykah started the whole
neo-soul movement. And I don't know if that’s necessarily true because
before Erykah Badu, there was Joi Gilliam. Joi Gilliam came out in, like,
‘94, with Dallas Austin, and she's from Atlanta. And she came out with,
uh, “Sunshine & The Rain,” um, and then she also did another project
called the Amoeba Cleansing Syndrome, which got shelved. But it’s
become like an underground cult classic. And then, before Joi Gilliam,
there was Victoria Wilson James….So I feel like Erykah was the one who
kind of made it popular, um, amongst, like, the mainstream and
commercial world, that whole, that whole neo-soul sound. And I
honestly... [am] trying to figure out what is neo-soul…because you can
have soul. You have funk. We know what sounds like, but what really is
neo-soul? Is it live instrumentation? Is it someone who has like a slow
vibrato? …Because… when I really think about it, it's like I honestly don't
know. The only person I can refer to it is Erykah and D'Angelo. So when
I think about neo-soul, I think about… a Rhodes, a Rhodes piano, which is
a sound that came out of Philly. (D. Bernarr, personal communication,
April 10, 2015)

Durrand’s comments underscore the nebulous history of neo-soul’s sonic birth, but what
is clear is that Erykah Badu and Baduizm in particular laid the popular framework for the
genre. Besides the Rhodes piano, Badu laid a sonic starter kit for musicians and artists
who were interested in getting in at the ground floor of a then bourgeoning genre. This
starter kit as Darien Dean, a singer-songwriter who’s been labeled neo-soul, has
suggested, entails a “rimshot snare, Rhodes, bass, maybe a little bit of a twanging guitar,
some background vocals and some horns, if you could afford them. That was the starter
kit and if you had a bit of a budget, maybe you got gospel choirs, some live strings.
Maybe you put a little electric guitar, if you were feeling funky. Primarily, the whole
thing with soul music is that it’s more organic…it is definitely a more organic sound” (D.
Dean, personal communication, March 25, 2015). This organic sound stems from neo-
soul music primarily being recorded in analog technology. Badu has noted several times
that she’s ‘an analog girl in a digital world,’ making music of and with yesteryear
technology. Despite this format of the recording, Badu’s live album aptly entitled Live

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(1997), was recorded with a six-piece band consisting of Hubert Eaves IV (bass), Charles
Bell (percussion) and Norman Hurt (keyboard) and three backing singers, further
underscoring the neo-soul starter kit referenced by Darien Dean.
Delving back into Baduizm, the subsequent track following “On & On” was
another Erykah Free original, “Appletree,” which was inspired by Erykah Badu’s
Grandmother’s (‘Ganny’) saying ‘pick my friends like I pick my fruit’ (Kinnon, 1997;
Tate, 1997). While “On & On” features a laidback vibe, “Appletree” is a more upbeat
hip-hop beat driven instrumental that featured the Rhodes and percussion at the center of
its instrumentation. The story centers on Erykah sharing her Ganny’s advice of picking
friends like one pick’s her fruit while poking a little fun at herself (“I was hangin’ out wit
some of my “artsy” friends”). Throughout it all, Erykah offers food for thought sharing
the wise principle that she lives by: “I don’t walk around trying to be what I’m not, I
don’t waste my time trying to get what you got.” Paired with the relaxing up-tempo
which features a melodic birdsong throughout the chorus and bridge, “Appletree” is
relaxing while inspiring and the lyrical content is more easily grasped than that of “On &
On.” While growing up listening to Baduizm and “Appletree” in particular, Durrand
“never understood the meaning behind when she said, “I pick my friends like I pick my
fruit,” you know. And now that I'm older…I can understand what [that] song means” (D.
Bernarr, personal communication, April 10, 2015). “Appletree” like other songs on
Baduizm offer food for thought to fans of Badu at different moments in their lives. While
Durrand at eight years old did not quite grasp the lyrical intention of “Appletree,” as he
matured, so did his understanding and comprehension of Baduizm and he often revisits
certain songs in her discography depending on where he is in his life.

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Liz Lora, an avid neo-soul fan also revisits neo-soul music and more recently
“Appletree” when it appeared on Pandora. While she had not heard the song in roughly
four or five years, the song brought her “to another level of… transformation… [and she]
want[ed] to become something else… [something] stronger (L. Lora, personal
communication, February 28, 2015). Erykah’s message and music on “Appletree”
empowered her to want to find her better self. Through Erykah’s self-reflexive message
of ‘I don’t walk around trying to be what I’m not, I don’t waste my time trying to get
what you got,’ Liz was inspired to find her higher self and connect with herself in a more
personal way.
I don't know if it’s just the words, if it’s the music or if it’s just her voice
but it just brings [me] from normal… [to] I can conquer the world. And I
try to do it. I started like trying to find myself more because I felt that the
music was…like helping me find who I was. And it still does. I still play
all, you know, the Lauryn Hills then the Erykah Badus and I still feel like
okay this gives me a reason to…hey let me try crocheting. Let me try
something different. Let me try, you know, doing something that I’ve never
done because this feeling or this emotion brings me there (L. Lora,
personal communication, February 28, 2015).

The combination of accessible poetic lyrics on “Appletree” as well as its release patterns
marks “Appletree” as a congruent message through rhetorician Sellnow’s (1996) Illusion
of Life perspective
5
. Featuring a consistent, predictable rhythmic meter, constant and

5
This project utilizes Sellnow’s (1996) Illusion of Life perspective because it was designed to examine
systematically the ways in which lyrics (virtual experience) and music (virtual time) work together to
convey messages comprised of both conceptual and emotional content. Sellnow’s (1996) Illusion of Life
perspective differs from actual life because it is a representation of life experiences and feelings influenced
by the artist’s perspective. The virtual time (music) suspends actual time and offers itself instead as a
substitute. Critic’s goal is to determine holistically whether the music represents primarily intensity or
release pattern. An intensity pattern represents the shock and instability and might be represented in music
that speeds up in tempo and/or increases in volume. On the other hand, a release pattern represent the
resolutions experienced and is featured in music that gradually slows down and/or decreases in volume.
The virtual experience (lyrics) differs from actual day-to-day experience by representing experiences in
ways that are influenced by an artist’s perspective. They can be comedic, that deals with self-preservation
and capitalizing on opportunities to beat the odds and is congruent with intensity patterns. Lyrics can also
be tragic that are self-consummation, dealing with great moral sacrifices, and coping with fate and pair with
release patterns. Lyrics also have either a poetic illusion or dramatic illusion. Poetic lyrics are backward-

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mellow vocal harmonies on the chorus, as well as an instrumentation that is acoustic
(through the rhodes, a bass guitar and a drum set), this release pattern represents the
resolution of the experience in the virtual experience (Dewey, 1934).
Just like Durrand and Liz, Black women in particular have utilized Badu’s
Baduizm in their everyday lives. Tarresha Poindexter, an avid Erykah Badu fan opened
up about how she often revisits Badu during troubling times in her romantic relationships.
Well, you know, most recently, I was in a very serious relationship. And,
you know, I had to put on her [Baduizm] album…I feel like her music sort
of empowers you to be a woman and appreciate the things that make you
special, particularly as a Black woman. So especially during, sort of, that
emotional turmoil, it was nice to be able to be connected to, a source that
was a little more uplifting. (T. Poindexter, personal communication,
February 16, 2015)

When pressed on what songs she has revisited in the past, Tarresha points to Baduizm’s
second single “Next Lifetime.” The song is bittersweet and optimistic at the same time,
and opens with Badu talking to a man she’s known for a while who is expressing his
interest in perusing a romantic relationship with her. Unfortunately, Erykah is unavailable
as she is already attached to someone. In the song, Erykah regrets that she cannot build a
relationship with this man “how can I want you for myself, when I’m already someone’s
girl,” but is optimistic promising that they will meet in the next life. Through Sellnow’s
(1996) Illusion of Life rhetorical perspective, “Next Lifetime” represents an incongruent
message where the virtual time (musical score) and virtual experience (lyrics) are not
aligned. The musical score and Badu’s vocal performance both represent release patterns
with the song’s slow tempo, consistent meter, and constant/mellow vocal performance.

looking into the virtual past, which can’t be altered. They are resolved and represent release. Meanwhile,
dramatic lyrics are forward-looking into the virtual future, which offers uncertain destiny. Therefore these
lyrics offer a sense of suspense and represent intensity.

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However instead of representing a tragic experience (self-consummation, dealing with
great moral sacrifices, and coping with fate) that is congruent with a release virtual time,
the song features a comedic take (self-preservation and capitalizing on opportunities to
beat the odds) on life (Sellnow, 1996). Through Sellnow’s (1996) paradigm, the lyrics
represent a dramatic illusion (forward-looking into the virtual future, which offers
uncertain destiny) through the repetitive lyric “I guess I’ll see you next lifetime.”
Despite the musical score and lyrics being at odds with what Sellnow (1996) defines as
an incongruent interaction between the musical score and lyrics, Badu still conveys her
message in an accessible way where fans are able to grasp the depths of her sentiment.
For Tarresha, this message on “Next Lifetime” rang true for her during a previous
relationship where she met a young man but the timing was off.
Like “Next Lifetime,” where, you know, I was dating someone, before,
where, it’s just the time wasn’t right. You know, he was in a different
place, I was in a different place. We both had some serious chemistry. But
that was a song that kind of spoke to that moment. So I think she's
versatile in that almost every one of her songs can speak to a different
moment in your lifetime. I think that’s what I really enjoy about her
music. (T. Poindexter, personal communication, February 16, 2015)

What Tarresha enjoys is the self-reflexive nature of Badu’s work that speaks to not only
her life, but other Black female’s lives in general. This attribute of speaking to a different
moment in your life allows for constant revisits to Badu’s debut album long past its
original shelf life. Lifted as the second single from Baduizm, “Next Lifetime” received
the music video treatment and Badu depicts this wrong timing that Tarresha references
through three different lifetimes: Motherland, 1637 A.D., 'The Movement, 1968 and
Motherland, 3037. Speaking about the video to VIBE, Badu opens up about how “the
video starts out in Africa, in the 1600s, them it goes to 1961 America. The next lifetime is

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3037, which is very similar to the year 1600, “cause that’s when we went back to our
national ways. Everything is much greener” (Tate, 1997, p. 86).
In “Next Lifetime,” Badu represents four of the six neo-soul music video
functions. Through the music video, Badu (1) elicits nostalgia through visual imagery
referencing both Africa as well as the 1960s Civil Rights Movement; (2) makes a
reference to Malcolm X while peering out of a window after noise from a car is heard
during a strategy meeting (3) creates Black female space during both Motherland
lifetimes through the gathering of Black women both young and old in different
locations; and (4) occupies/claims several different locals throughout the entirety of the
video. Black women are seen throughout Badu’s video for “Next Lifetime” and are
central to the narrative of potentially matching with that soul mate in your next lifetime.
Just as “Next Lifetime” stays true visually to neo-soul’s visual functions, sonically, “Next
Lifetime” sticks to the familiar neo-soul starter kit but includes the sound of whale calls
and the surging of waves in the background, adding a sort of organic, natural vibe to the
record.
Following the success of “Next Lifetime,” “Otherside of the Game” was released
as the album’s third single that spotlights how love is valued above material gain and
highlights the eternal struggles that we face during relationships while seeking a love
without judgment. A closer textual analysis reveals how “Otherside Of The Game” is an
ode to the plight of a woman living in constant fear that her drug-dealing boyfriend will
be arrested and how her life might be shattered. Music by The Roots and Richard Nichols
provides the perfect sonic balance that opens with a dimmed baseline as the percussion
builds into horns before the instrumentation drops and Badu coos effortlessly while

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striking a sensitive yet affectionate balance on “Whatcha gonna do when they come for
you?” Over the next six minutes and thirty-four seconds Erykah slowly peels away the
layers of this complex relationship, revealing that her lover has a “complex occupation”
even though he is educated as she was “right there at his graduation.” As the story further
evolves, Badu later discloses that the protagonist is recently pregnant as she reveals that
“the seed has grown, I can’t make it on my own.” This song’s rhetorical strength exists
within its complicated and complex nature, which offers no clear solution. The equipment
for living that Erykah draws upon is that sometimes there is no clear conclusion to be
drawn from a situation, as the protagonist in “Otherside of the Game” remains ambivalent
in her situation. The situation of loving someone on one hand and disliking their means of
providing a lifestyle is irreconcilable, real and ever-present.
Kyera Singleton, a longtime fan of Erykah Badu’s work underscores the power of
Erykah’s lyrics, especially on “Otherside of the Game.”
I think that neo-soul allows Black musicians to openly engage in
critique…Critique of society, critique of the music industry… critique of a
lot of things… critiques of society and everyday interacts that they engage
in…. I think that many of them are in alignment with critiques that are
placed in hip-hop… like Erykah Badu’s umm what’s the song with her
and Andre 3000 is in the video, [starts singing] “Whatcha gonna do when
they come for you,” [“Otherside of the Game”]. You know she’s exploring
what it’s like to be in a relationship with a drug dealer… In a way that
actually talks about how women and children are affected. There are ways
in which I think neo-soul allows artists, specifically Black women, to enter
that conversation and say this is how this issue that is commented upon by
Black men actually includes me. (K. Singleton, personal communication,
October 17, 2013)

As Kyera highlights, in “Otherside of the Game” Erykah Badu offers a critique on
drug dealing through the lens of women and children and how they can be
affected by this act. While most songs at the time focused on the lifestyle of drug

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dealing through the Black male protagonist’s eyes, Badu expands the scope to
include the voice of Black women who oftentimes find themselves on the margins
of the Black public sphere and public sphere in general (Fraser, 1990; Squires,
2002). Badu along with her fellow neo-soulsters “allowed Black women to kind
of bogart their way in and say here we exist, we make this music too” (K.
Singleton, personal communication, October 17, 2013). Singleton’s sentiment
speaks to the visible exclusion and/or marginality of Black female voices within
mainstream rap music (Rose, 1994; Perry 2004) which neo-soul addresses
through its lyrical and musical contributions. Rap music was pioneered and
created within masculine spaces that often excluded Black women from its
foundational (Rose, 1994), however through the bourgeoning neo-soul movement
led by Erykah Badu, Black female artists in particular have created a space
through which they could speak to, with, and about hip-hop culture and rap music
that centered Black women narratives and images at the forefront of the genre. As
Terron Austin, a neo-soul fan reminds us, “neo-soul, again, is a melting pot that
has bits of hip-hop, bits of jazz, bits of opera, bits of R&B. It’s flavorful. It’s
almost like a stew, like a gumbo, a jambalaya almost of everything you’ve ever
experienced all at once.” (T. Austin, personal communication, February 22,
2015). Badu on Baduizm perfected this jambalaya in a sonic amalgamation that
birthed a movement inspired by hip-hop and jazz but with Black female narratives
at the center.
For Badu, she “want[s] to be a different example of what a Black woman
is, what a Black person is. I wear my headwraps because a headwrap is a crown,

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and I am a queen. A headwrap demands a certain amount of respect – it just does,
and I am always headwrapped” (Waldron, p. 63, 2001). Her desire to be a
different example of Black womanhood relates to the controlling images (Collins,
1990; Negel 2003) that she is trying to combat both in her lyrical and visual
(re)presentation. This quest for a lyrical and visual diversity of Black womanhood
would be echoed by fellow neo-soul sisters (Jill Scott, India.Arie, etc.) who used
their music videos and lyrics as a way to complicate society’s view of Black
women, attempting to complicate archetypes. Regarding this stance and image
that Badu decided to take on early in her career, she told VIBE Magazine that “I
think I represent an image that is not focused on by the music business. They
probably didn’t think I would sell because the music business and music are two
different things. One is motivated by money and one I motivated by truth. The
truth doesn’t sell a lot of times. Lies sell” (Tate, 1997, p. 86). This ideological
stance is front and center in the official music video for Badu’s “Otherside of the
Game,” which revolves around a Black couple involved within a drug-dealing
lifestyle.
The video opens with ‘A story by Erykah Badu’ as the camera ascends a
flight of stairs. Once the camera reaches the first landing and shoes are shown, the
visual changes from blue to color and the camera pans across the apartment
zooming in on a painting of Badu before she rises in front of the portrait and
beings singing. Badu then wakes up her husband, played by her then boyfriend
Andre 3000, as the two playfully begin their morning routine. During their
routine, Andre receives a page on his pager and makes a call. Badu begins

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preparing breakfast and peers outside seeing a cop car, moments later Andre
answers the door, and receives a package containing money, possibly from illegal
activities from two individuals who appear to be cops. Afterwards, Andre puts his
head on Badu’s belly and changes the song to “Rimshot” and the couple embrace
for a while before Andre counts the money and Badu resumes her normal
morning activities. As the couple continues to lounge around, Andre receives a
message from his pager, and leaves the home. Baduu gives him his cell phone and
embraces him before she changes the song back to “Otherside of the Game,” sits
on the bed and shows concern for his safe return.
Through the video, Erykah touches upon three of the six neo-soul
functions: She creates a sense of nostalgia by harkening back to, or bridges the
past with the present, through the iconography of vinyl records and Black cultural
memorabilia. Secondly, Badu creates and showcases Black female space within a
household through her morning routine. Finally, Badu reconfigures the Black
woman’s position in a romantic relationship showing her as a partner in their
relationship. This is a departure from how Black women had been depicted in
music videos at the time revolving around the same topic, often seen as the
girlfriend with limited agency in the relationship and situation (Tate, 1997).
Through this video and song, Badu reveals the complexities of being in a
relationship that is truly built on a partnership. For Midori McSwain, a DJ and a
self-claimed Erykah Badu ‘stan’ (intense form of fan), the songs represents a self-
reflexive moment for Badu about partnership and relationships that spans past a
couple caught up in dealing drugs.

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And she's talking about being pregnant and he's like, dealing drugs at the
moment…She’s in that point of just thinking, like, you know, I'm
pregnant. I'm going to have this baby. How are we going to do this?
What's the next step? And realizing, I don't know. I think that song is
really about, like, realizing like how powerful you are, but at the same
time, like your limits, too, and what you have to compromise at times.
When shit gets real…Erykah has a lot [of lyrics] about a lot of different
things…So like, motherhood, I think is one. Like, just being a Black
woman. Being with a Black man and what that's like and those struggles. I
think they hit on a lot of the tensions, you know, that happen in
relationships. (M. McSwain, personal communication, February 28, 2015)

As DNora (2000) reminds us “music can be used as a device for the reflexive
process of remembering/constructing who one is” and Midori alludes to this
through her comment about Badu in reference to her lyrics and the “Otherside of
the Game” in particular (p. 63). Midori like other fans of neo-soul music who I
interviewed often utilize this music in their everyday lives as a tool of self-
reflexivity and/or empowerment and Badu recognizes and embraces this usage of
her music.
Conclusion
Speaking with JET Magazine, Badu stated: “My words and my music are
my weapon of choice. And as you grow, you need something to go out there with
in the world and protect you. I urge folks to use my music and my words as they
will, as they should, as they see fit” (Waldron, p. 64, 2001). Midori sees fit to
revisit Erykah Badu’s Baduizm to speak to herself about the tensions and
struggles of life and relationships in a way that is similar to how Tarresha and Liz
approach their intake of Badu’s work. Haydee, a neo-soul fan underscores this
usage of neo-soul music especially with its relation to Black women: “Now for
women, I think neo-soul was a catalyst for being able to tell the women’s story,

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the Black woman story” (H. Souffrant, personal communication, March 21,
2015). Against other music genres, Haydee feels that “neo-soul was able to allow
Black women a creative space and a creative agency” that wasn’t found in other
music cultures (H. Souffrant, personal communication, March 21, 2015). This
deep connection to the Black community and Black womanhood was built in to
the foundation of neo-soul; a connection particularly evident in Badu’s Baduizm.
In fact, one could argue, that Baduizm laid the blueprints for that connection.
When asked by VIBE Magazine about her contemporaries who were also
being labeled neo-soul, Badu felt as though they (D’Angelo, Me’Shell
NdegeOcello) didn’t sound anything alike (Tate, 1997). Rather, they “vibrate on
the same level. We’re all about the same age, and we come from the ‘70s soul
feel. That’s just what we understand as music, and we’re just now coming to light
in the business. The formula is feel it. And people feel it because people are real. I
don’t underestimate my audience. I treat them like intelligent people who can
understand what I’m saying” (Tate, 1997, p. 86). What they were feeling was a
healing of a fractured Black consciousness that Haydee alludes to during our
interview on neo-soul.
I think neo-soul was the genre that was trying to figure out a way to heal a
fractured Black consciousness that has existed for so long and the ways we
can do that whether it’s self-loving, whether it’s through loving somebody
else, whether it’s through just keeping it real and being like “you know
what I’m down for this” like you know just checking in. (H. Souffrant,
personal communication, March 21, 2015)

This attempt to heal a fractured Black consciousness that Haydee mentions stems
from the power that culture can have on anybody’s mind (DeNora, 2001). Anasa

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Troutman (2015), president of Soulbird Music and Arie’s manager highlights this
point during our interview stating, “culture is the most powerful way to shape
anybody’s mind, ever… Culture changes people’s minds, changes the way people
think about social issues. Culture breaks down barriers…” (A. Troutman, personal
communication, April 3, 2015). Through this viewpoint, neo-soul music’s self-
empowering, self-reflexive grio rhetorical style of delivery seeks to midwife
Black culture and society in general as Erykah Badu originally proclaimed during
her 1997 interview on Planet Grove.
xxvi

Erykah Badu planted the mainstream seed of neo-soul and through
Baduizm created this unfolding movement, other female artists such as Jill Scott
and India.Arie took up the torch and offered their own nuanced perspective on
Black womanhood and the Black community. The once burgeoning genre soon
spurred a plethora of music releases in the early 2000s that evolved neo-soul. As
Erykah said, “my cipher keeps moving like a rolling stone,” so did neo-soul and
what one could sonically, lyrically, and visually expect from the genre. This
chapter focused on the beginnings of neo-soul through Erykah Badu’s landmark
debut album Baduizm and how early fandom began to revolve around the themes
of empowerment and self-reflexivity. This chapter also traced the musical
landscape that unfolded prior to the success of Baduizm. Through a unique blend
of jazz, soul, and rap music, Jill Scott and India.Arie—who brought their own
unique sonic mixtures and lyrical themes to the expanding cannon of neo-soul—
would soon expand upon Erykah Badu’s neo-soul framework.

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Chapter Three: That’s My Girl will center on the lyrical advances that Jill Scott’s
Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1 (2000) and India.Arie’s Acoustic Soul (2001)
represent within the development of neo-soul, while examining the mounting Black
female fan base and counterpublic sphere. These two albums are highlighted for their
commercial and critical impact on the genre, both selling in excess of two million copies
within the United States as well as being nominated for several GRAMMY Awards
(Mitchell, 2002; Reiland, 2011). Engaging political and social transformations and the
growth of neo-soul’s Black female fandom surrounding the culture, this chapter argues
that neo-soul’s growth was directly related to its explicit rebuttals of the politics of
respectability, both visually and lyrically. Key questions for this chapter include: How do
Jill Scott’s and India.Arie’s albums differ lyrically, musically, and visually from
Baduizm? What lyrical themes are engaged within Jill Scott and India.Arie’s debut
albums? How do these lyrical themes differ from Baduizm? Visually, how are Jill Scott
and India.Arie’s music videos different from and similar to Erkyah Badu’s? What
commercial, social, and/or political successes has the genre experienced? Conversely,
what commercial, social, and/or political missteps has the genre encountered? How has
fandom evolved? How are fans participating differently than they did during the
development of the genre?

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CHAPTER THREE
That’s My Girl

On March 26, 2001, Jet Magazine published the cover story, The Rebirth of Soul,
where the weekly publication opened up about the leading artists who were “transforming
soul music with honest lyrics, funky rhythms and Areocentric style[s]” (p. 56). Erykah
Badu, Jill Scott, Macy Gray, Jill Scott, Angie Stone, India.Arie, and Lauryn Hill were
profiled alongside Maxwell, Musiq Soulchild, Eric Benét, Bilal, and D’Angelo as
pioneers of this new musical style. Centering on contemporary Black women’s cultural
production within the genre, Jet highlighted how the likes of newcomers at the time Jill
Scott and India.Arie were at the center and pioneering the neo-soul movement. Jon
Parceles (2001) of The New York Times further underscores this point arguing that
“[t]hese women make music that maps a way out of pop’s current dead ends:
thuggishness, saccharine romance, self-loathing and whiny hostility. Their songs are
realistic yet doggedly optimistic, political as well as personal and willing to be both
sensual and spiritual” (p. 73). For Karen Person-Lynn (2000) at the San Diego Union-
Tribune, “[w]hat is curious about this present black popular musical revolution, it seems
to be female-driven…That is not to say that the men have disappeared, but their lyrics do
not hit the social consciousness of the women artists previously mentioned [Lauryn Hill,
Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, India.Arie]” (p. B3). While D’Angelo expands the lyrical content
of male neo-soul singers through Voodoo, with songs such as “Devil’s Pie,” “The Line,”
and “Africa,” the majority of lyrics during the early 2000s from male neo-soul singers
still centered on love, sex, relationship drama, and other interpersonal themes.

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As the focus of this dissertation centers on Black women’s cultural production
within neo-soul, this chapter specifically addresses the lyrical advances that Jill Scott’s
Who Is Jill Scott?: Words and Sounds Vol. 1 (2000) and India.Arie’s Acoustic Soul
(2001) represent within the solidification of the neo-soul genre, while examining the
mounting Black female fanbase and counterpublic sphere. These two albums are
highlighted for discussion here, because of their commercial and critical impact on the
genre, both selling in excess of two million copies within the United States as well as
being nominated for several Grammy Awards (Mitchell, 2002; Reiland, 2011). Engaging
the lyrical and musical transformations with resulting political and social implications of
neo-soul, this chapter argues that neo-soul’s Black female fandom growth is directly
related to its explicit rebuttals of a culture of politics of respectability, both visually and
lyrically.
Who Is Jill Scott?
“Who is Jill Scott?” is the titular question that Scott’s debut album sought to
define. Released in July of 2000, Scott’s album was part of the then rising musical
movement we have since come to call neo-soul. Scott’s album cover, shows her in what
appears to be the back seat of a car (or in a leather booth) with her head tilted down and
covered predominately by a hat. Mark Anthony Neal (2002) noted that, “the cover photo
and title represent the invisibility and silence of brown girls within the black [hip-hop]
community and the larger American society” (p. 156). Scott, who is somewhat concealed
by her hat and shirt, speaks to the millions of invisible Black women within hip-hop and
the larger American society that oftentimes views Black women as monolithic and
uncomplicated individuals with often misleading and negative singular portrayals (Lee,

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2010; Kelley, 1997; Perry, 2004; Pough, 2003; Pough 2004; Utley, 2012; Weekes, 2002).
Through further analysis of the album cover, one can see Scott conceals her face and
body, as a symbolic challenge to Western ideals of beauty and the treatment of both
overweight/obese women and women of color. While hip-hop culture and Western
society silences these women by making them both visible and invisible (Frazier, 2011),
Scott contests this with the slight
unbuttoning of her collared shirt to reveal
her brown skin. In addition to the
concealment of her body, Scott’s face is
predominantly obscure from view and the
brown hat, which blends into her face and
covers her hair removing it as a sign of
seductive beauty. Also, the concealed face
(absence of eye contact and facial
expression) represents Neal’s notion of invisibility and silence of brown skin women
within hip-hop and the project’s title “Who Is Jill Scott?” further underscores this
invisibility and silence. Scott’s debut album “is a clear attempt to counter the ‘champagne
sipping, money faking’ narratives found in recordings like hip-hop artists Jay-Z’s ‘Life
and Times of Shawn Carter trilogy,’ which supposedly authenticate the experience of the
urban black male” (Neal, 2002, p. 157). As referenced earlier, hip-hop is a Black
masculine space (Dyson, 2001; hooks, 1994; Perry, 2004; Rose, 1994), and Scott visually
juxtaposes her debut album against normative hip-hop practices, and is attempting to
make the claim that her music is coming from a Black feminine space speaking to the

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lived experiences and lives of the Black woman. Scott privileges the “homegirl space,”
which Neal (2002) notes is both a celebration of this space as well as “an attempt to
acknowledge and perhaps counter the antagonism between black women” (p. 160).
By entering this conversation of Black female politics via the musical genre of
neo-soul, Scott and her accompanying musical discourse in Who is Jill Scott?: Words and
Sounds, Volume 1 is a part of a musical legacy of female agency that can be traced back
to her foremothers in soul music (Werner, 2006) and even their foremothers in blues
(Davis, 1999). By challenging the politics of respectability, racial profiling, infighting
between Black women, and other diverse topics, Scott’s debut album critiques the notion
that Black woman are the singular stereotypical representations that have been
perpetuated about them throughout hip-hop and the larger sphere of popular culture.
Instead, Scott offers a narrative of a woman who inhabits a variety of roles and images
within her daily life. “Who is Jill Scott?” can consequently be answered by stating that
she is a complex, intelligent, sensual, sexual, beautiful, Black woman, who, through her
own story reveals that she and other women like her are too complicated to fit into the
simplistic representations she has been hitherto confined by.
Who is Jill Scott? begins aptly with the intro entitled “Jilltro” that introduces
listeners to Jill’s inspirations of poetry, hip-hop, R&B, and jazz. Before Who is Jill Scott?
was released on July 18, 2000, the first single serviced to radio was her Mos-Def assisted
single “Love Rain,” which, Billboard Magazine proclaimed would “please fans of both
Erykah Badu and Macy Gray” due to its “delicious slab of funky soul” (p. 30). Beginning
with the strumming of a Spanish guitar, Mos Def intros the song before the
instrumentation drops with Scott cooing “love rain down” and maracas, cymbals, and

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drums bring in the tempo of the song past the guitar. Lyrically, the song centers on a past
relationship where the protagonist, presumably Jill, fell in love with a man who seemed
to be genuinely interested in her. But as we find out, the titular protagonist’s past
relationships blinded her from his seeing true intentions—that he wants her for her body
and not her mind. Scott opens the song by singing about how they “talked about Moses
and Mumia, reparations, blue colors, memories of shell-topped adidas” (Scott, 2000).
Scott sets the scene for Black love by referencing Black topical issues such as
reparations, sneaker culture and Mumia Abu-Jamal (an American prisoner convicted of
murdering Philadelphian police officer Daniel Faulkner) in order to direct the song’s
message to a particular audience.
While the overarching theme of falling in love with someone with bad intentions
is a universal story, cultural references found throughout “Love Rain” endear Jill Scott
both to Philadelphia (Mumia) as well as the Black community (reparations and sneaker
culture). Later Jill confesses how “the rain was fallin’ slowly and sweetly and stinging
my eyes and I could not see. That he became my voodoo priest and I was his faithful
concubine” (Scott, 2000) For Jill, the love was blinding her from seeing that he was
controlling her. He was in it for the lust, not love and since she loved him he knew he
could get it from her easy. She was the fool. Through Sellnow’s (1996) Illusion of Life
rhetorical perspective “Love Rain” can be seen as a congruent argument, as the virtual
time (musical score) and virtual experience (lyrics) complement one another. With a
slow, predictable rhythmic tempo, constant harmonies filled with a melody of long-held
notes and few instruments, this release pattern represents the resolution of the experience
that Jill sings about in “Love Rain.” Regarding the lyrics she sings about, one can label

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them as tragic through Sellnow’s (1996) Illusion of Life perspective with a poetic
illusion. The lyrics are tragic as seen through Sellnow’s (1996) lens, for Scott is coping
with the inevitable fate of the relationship, while she offers a poetic illusion as she is
looking back into the virtual past, which can no longer be altered.
Scott draws in listeners on “Love Rain” and other songs on Who is Jill Scott?
through both her lyrical ascription (Sellnow, 1996) of integrating examples and stories
from pop culture and musical ascription (Sellnow, 1996) of imitating a musical sound
that appeals to a particular target audience. Through these ascriptions, her moniker ‘Jilly
from Philly,’ has stayed with the multi-Grammy-winning singer/songwriter long past her
tenure of residing in the city as songs such as “Love Rain,” “Getting’ in the Way,” “A
Long Walk,” and “The Way” continue to endear her to the city of brotherly love and the
Black community through their lyrical and musical score content, as well as in the later
songs for their visuals (Hight, 2015). Philadelphia is an important location for neo-soul as
music fan Sudhey Taveras reveled. “If you wanted to be in that [neo-soul] movement,
you had to, go to Philly… that’s where you saw Jill Scott, before she blew up… that’s
where you saw everybody [Floetry, Musiq Soulchild]… the heart of it was Philly…
there’s a lot of pain there. But there’s a lot of love for music [too]” (S. Taveras, personal
communication, March 15, 2015). Philadelphia is an important locale as previously
mentioned in Chapter two as Badu finished Baduizim with The Roots there and Jill Scott
and noted neo-soul artists Floetry, Musiq Soulchild, and Bilal all got their starts in this
city.
Commenting on this direct connection to the Black community that Jill Scott and
neo-soul as a musical genre have, a Jill Scott fan, Saralyn Boyd-Winslow (2001) wrote a

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letter to the editor of Ebony Magazine, suggesting that Ms. Scott is an inspiration and an
affirmative reflection of Black womanhood as she accepts herself as the complex
individual that she is.
Jill Scott is an absolute an inspiration to [Black] women worldwide. What
is most endearing about her music is that it comes from a place of
confidence, not arrogance. She loves herself; therefore we love her. She
does not degrade other women for the choice[s] they make. She is not
judgmental or haughty, supposing that her path is the path that every
woman should choose. Rather, she simply is herself accepting of her flaws
and gifts equally, as they are what make her unique. (p. 19)

Jill Scott, through her lyrical and musical ascription, provides a space for Black women
to engage in empowerment through self-reflectivity and self-love. This idea may
particularly apply to Black women. As noted music critic Christopher John Farley (2004)
has remarked: “[a] lot of the songs on [Jill Scott’s] album are speaking to the experiences
people go through in the black community, especially women” (p. N1). While I can attest
firsthand that a Jill Scott concert is filled mostly with women of color; the themes of self-
love and a greater knowledge of self are applicable across age range, ethnicity or racial
background as Terron Austin (personal communication, February 22, 2015) noted during
our interview. These productive themes in neo-soul music impart personal solace for me
as well. However, it is clear that the perspectives of the protagonist generally referenced
in music by Ms. Scott and her neo-soul female peers are primarily geared towards women
of color. Such an address is particularly clear in Scott’s ode to a former lover “Do You
Remember?” as well as “Exclusively,” in which is a spoken-word testament to meeting
her lover’s (former?) lover. A woman of color’s perspective also is present in Jill’s
official first single “Gettin’ In The Way.” As Nelly Sargent (2015) a neo-soul fan and
counselor, who has used the music in her own work, underscores the point: “The music I

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would think is geared more toward women….of course [you can] pull out, write different
things depending on who you are and things like that but I think it would be geared more
toward women because…they’re talking from their own experiences as women” (N.
Sargent, personal communication, February 19, 2015).
“Gettin’ In The Way” begins with familiar instrumentation from the neo-soul
starter kit that Darien Dean (2015) referenced in our first chapter. The fender Rhodes
piano, cymbals, wood blocks, set the tempo for Scott until the pre-chorus rings out and
the bass drum, horns, and bass guitar flesh out the instrumentation. The production also
utilizes a sample of the Pointer Sisters’ 1977 song “Pinball Number Count,” for the
melodic passing of “you better back down before you get smacked down.” This lush
production creates a familiar sound for listeners of neo-soul music as Scott is recalling
familiar and similar production to the likes of Baduizm as well as D’Angelo’s Vodoo,
which was released earlier that year ahead of Scott’s 2000 debut. Privileging the homegirl
space that Neal (2002) references regarding Who Is Jill Scott?, Scott proclaims boldly
“Sista Gurl, I know you don’t understand, but you gon have to understand, he’s my man
now,” as listeners enter into the first verse and later she references the status of the
woman’s hair (“ya roots are dug up you might as well give up”) (Scott, 2000). Scott
further contextualizes this homegirl space, underscoring it with her usage of ‘Sistah
honey gurl’ at the start of the second verse, as well as the inclusion of Queens in that
verse and repetition of ‘gurl’ within the hook following the second verse. The message of
the song is simple, Jill finds out that another woman is trying to take her man and she
wants to let her know woman to woman to stop before this escalates further.

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Through Sellnow’s (1996) Illusion of life perspective, the song represents a
congruent message as the instrumentation creates intensity patterns that pair with the
comedic lyrics and dramatic illusion. With a driving tempo, ascending melody, staccato
and accented phrasings, and the amplification of the song’s instrumentation, the song fits
squarely into the paradigm of an intensity pattern (Dewey, 1934) that represent the shock
and instability of life. Pairing this intensity pattern with comedic lyrics (self-preservation
and capitalizing on opportunities to beat the odds) and dramatic illusion (forward-looking
into the virtual future, which offers an uncertain sense of destiny) the message of “Gettin’
In The Way” is highly accessible and easy to comprehend.
For Janderie Gutierrez (2015), “Gettin' In The Way,” became one of her favorite
song from Scott’s debut album. “I thought the video was hilarious but that’s a common
story that I’ve never heard a song written about you know about her finding out some
chick trying to, just trying to get her man…” (J. Gutierrez, personal communication,
February 24, 2015). For Janderie and other fans, what draws them to neo-soul music is
the familiarity of the lyrical and musical content that engenders the genre to them.
Janderie had never heard a song like “Gettin’ In The Way” before and while the story is a
common one, for it to be expressed in music—and neo-soul more specifically—reveals
how this musical space is a Black counterpublic for stories such as this and others that
Scott and other neo-soul songstresses have engaged in so they may be more clearly heard,
as neo-soul offered narratives that were not traditionally heard in the larger public sphere
Neo-soul therefore allows for a dialogue within the Black community as fellow neo-soul
fan Lara Adekola (2015) remarks.
It allows us to have a dialogue, a conversation that, we might not be able
to have within mainstream culture, it is its own subculture, I would say…

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it’s a safe space, neo-soul music provide a safe space to have these
conversations and for us to question our role and our value within society
and our culture. Neo-soul music is actually very important. It’s very
important just to help you with learning who you are and your identity I
would say as for Black youth, for Black people that you don’t get with pop
music and or what’s on the radio, or with rap music or what’s push
through mainstream rap music and mainstream R&B. (L. Adekola,
personal communication, March 17, 2015)

The dialogue and conversation often engages what it’s like to be a “Black woman in the
struggles and the experiences that we go through” (L. Adekola, personal communication,
March 17, 2015) and artists such as Jill Scott and India.Aire are just two of the artists that
fans continually reference in regards to such a discussion.
The Jill Scott video that Janderie references for “Gettin in The Way” follows
Scott as she marches through the streets of Philadelphia from her home on her way to
confront a woman who has been telling lies about her to her man after this woman hangs
up on her. The video features several comedic elements including Scott accumulating a
crowd that follows her to the other’s woman’s house, the confronted woman and Scott
stereotypically roll their necks and exaggerate their facial expressions, a young toddler
pulling up a chair to make himself comfortable to watch the ensuing confrontation, and
Jill snatching the other woman’s fake hair and throws it into the crowd behind her. For
Neal (2002), the video “reduces the complexity of the song’s narrative to a street fight,
where community members convene publicly to watch the two women fight. The video
thus distorts the brown-girl spaces that the recording constructs by rendering these spaces
little more than sites of spectacle and voyeurism” (p. 161). While Neal’s points are
legitimate, on the flip side, Jill Scott created a video where she engages four of the six
neo-soul music video functions: (1) creates Black female space; (2) occupies spaces; (3)

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disrupt social spaces; as well as (4) refigures the Black woman’s position in a romantic
relationship as a way to complicate our vision of the brown-girl spaces.
While the spectacle and voyeurism of the physical confrontation might reduce the
complexity of the original song for some viewers, overall, the video offers visual imagery
that places Scott squarely as an active agent within her life choices and relationship.
While the comedic interaction of the altercation is a play on such stereotypes as the
sapphire, the interaction is just one part of the video. The video begins with Scott
reconfiguring her position within her relationship as she realizes another woman might be
involved in their relationship. As the narrative of the video shows, she takes it to the
woman instead of her man. Once Scott leaves her Philadelphia residence, she occupies
the street and disrupts social spaces as she walks to confront ‘the other woman,’ both
placing her body in typically unconventional Black female spaces (the street corner
amongst local young Black men; in the middle of the street) as well as Black female
spaces such as the porch where she encounters the other woman. The video ultimately
displays a Black woman in charge of her life choices, good or bad, who is not afraid of
confrontation whether it is over the phone or face-to-face. Speaking to Sonia Sanchez
(2001) for her Essence Magazine cover story, Jill proclaimed “[M]y intent has been to
show myself completely and not hide behind the masks of fancy clothing, a lot of
makeup, lots of jewelry. I don’t want to hide behind any of these things. I want to be just
who I am. Sometimes I win and sometimes I fail” (p. 89). The video for “Gettin’ In the
Way” engages this proclamation of self-love and self-respect from Scott. For those that
misinterpret the brown-girl spaces Scott is enacting and engaging due to the spectacle
nature of the video, might miss the point and intentions of Scott’s video. There is a reason

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why fifteen years later Janderie can still recall the funny video, but even more
importantly remember the message of the song as one relevant to one’s sense of self-
worth and the principles one chooses to live by.
Following “Gettin’ In The Way,” Scott released the set’s second official single “A
Long Walk.” A smooth mid-tempo ballad that begins with just the Rhodes and builds to
including the cymbal, snare drum, bass drum, bass guitar, and guitar; all familiar
instruments and sounds within the neo-soul musical landscape. Centered on what Scott
and her partner could do on their date, the song makes cultural references to smoking
weed and listening to a Philadelphia hip-hop band The Roots (“Or maybe we can roll a
tree… and listen to The Roots”) while Scott admits to having been in bad relationships
before, she acknowledges that she can discern a good man by who he is and how he treats
her (“Lord, have mercy on me, I was blind, now I can see What a king's supposed to be,
baby”). “A Long Walk” provides space and time for one to put aside his/her arrogance,
pride and contempt see the woman beside him not her materiality. Regarding the lyrical
and musical content, Scott once again elicits a congruent message paring intensity
patterns (amplified instrumentation, ascending melody) with comedic lyrics with
dramatic illusions (Sellnow, 1996)
Interestingly, gender pronouns are spares throughout “A Long Walk” and other
neo-soul songs, an intervention Scott & India.Arie offer with their debuts. This allows a
lot of neo-soul song to not be exclusive to “heteronormative [relationships between]
Black man [and] Black woman,” it’s about “Black love… [and it] doesn’t matter what
sexuality or gender you are” (M. McSwain, personal communication, February 28, 2015).
This is also a step away from hip-hop with its traditional insistence of heterosexual

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orientation. This openness within lyrical content is a shift that begins with Scott’s debut
album Who is Jill Scott? that is also included on the set’s final single “The Way,” as well
as album cuts such as “Honey Molasses,” “Slowly Surely,” and “One Is The Magic #.”
While the songs that Scott has written explicitly engage her own heterosexuality (“Love
Rain, “He Loves Me (Lyzel in E Flat,”), it is clear that she is not wedded to continually
referencing and explicitly engaging her heterosexuality on songs that deal with love, sex,
and relationships as former neo-soul releases have. Interestingly enough, since 2007,
Scott has performed “He Loves Me” as “You Love Me,” removing the explicitly male
gendered pronoun, allowing for the audience to more easily identify with her lyrical
narratives despite their sexual preference and gendered positionalities. While Baduizm
centered on similar themes as Who is Jill Scott?, pronouns are often explicit within the
lyrical content of Badu’s earlier work. While Jill Scott identities as a heterosexual
woman, her music opens up the imaginary of listeners to include themselves within some
of the stories and lyrical content. For Scott, “A Long Walk” was inspired by her and her
then finacé’s first date. “When I heard the beat, it sounded like a summer day. From there
the words just started coming and I just went with it. Much of it was part of my fiancé’s
and my first date. That’s when we met. We just went to the park and got a chance to learn
how to look at each other. ‘Long Walk’ is really a metaphor for life. If you rush and run
through it, you might miss it, but if you take a long walk…” (Norment, p. 104). While
inspired by her personal experiences, Scott’s lack of gender pronouns throughout the
song allow other couples to engage and enter into the thick description that Scott
describes and then later depicts in the music video.

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The video for “A Long Walk” begins with a black-and-white establishing shot of
Philadelphia row houses that Scott’s previous video “Gettin’ In The Way” familiarized
viewers with. Soon the view centers on Scott singing on a stop with several female
friends and a hand reaches out to grab Scott from behind the camera, alerting the viewer
that the video is from the point-of-view of Scott’s suitor. Scott begins to walk with her
suitor, and frames are shot in black-and-white. She looks back at her girlfriends with glee
and then waves to some elder Black women sitting on their stoop—unlike the
surroundings, the women are shot in color. A man then bumps into Scott and she herself
is seen in color and it appears that her suitor is in color as well as he reaches for a flower
to give Scott who then places the red carnation in her hair. They continue to walk through
the neighborhood, passing by food vendors, girls playing double-dutch, boys playing
basketball. All the while various people and objects add splashes of color to the black-
and-white city backdrop. Through it all Scott remains the focal point as the camera only
turns away from her to acknowledge Jeff Townes (DJ Jazzy Jeff), who is a major force in
establishing Scott’s career and the career of other neo-soulsters such as Musiq Soulchild
and Floetry. At the end, a kiss between Scott and her suitor shifts the point of view to
Scott, revealing her suitor to be her boyfriend from the “Gettin’ In The Way” video. This
visual familiarity and closeness that Scott offers throughout the video showcases her
North Philadelphia neighborhood as any typical Black community on a sunny summer
afternoon and invites familiar and unfamiliar community members into her neighborhood
to show of the beauty, complexity, and diversity of any Black neighborhood.
Although the male gaze is activated though the boyfriend’s point of view in the
video, Scott disrupts it in several salient ways. It is Scott who commands agency, as she

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is the one showing the neighborhood. Her body that would usually be coded as asexual is
seen as desirable due to her stature (Collins, 1990). Her body is shown as desirable,
though not exploited in obvious ways. Scott establishes her connection to the Black
audience as well as her neighborhood as she showcases it to the off-screen audience.
Regarding neo-soul music video functions, Scott utilizes five of the six themes as she: (1)
makes reference to well-known Black (wo)men, (2) creates Black female space, (3)
occupies space, (4) disrupt social space, and (5) reconfigure the Black woman’s position
in romantic relationships.
Scott makes a reference to Billie Holiday by placing the carnation in her afro.
While Holiday’s iconic imagery of a gardenia in her hair is different than Scott’s
carnation, the gesture is easily recognizable. Before this reference, Scott creates Black
female space and occupies it by sitting on the stoop of her row house with several of her
girlfriends as well as later waving to elder Black women who are perched on their porch
observing the neighborhood and engaging with young girls who are playing double Dutch
in the park. Scott also disrupts social space by once again (“Gettin’ In the Way”)
engaging with the young men of the community who are gathered on the corner
conversing. Finally, Scott reconfigures her position within her relationship, as she is the
active guide on the date showing her partner the neighborhood instead of being the
passive girlfriend. While her boyfriend picked her up on the date, it is Scott who is in
control of the date and where the two venture throughout Philadelphia.
Scott is a “ clever, gifted lyricist, she writes about love and related matters that
consume the heart and soul of a Sister from the neighborhood” as Ebony Magazine’s
cover story of the gifted songstress outlines (Norment, p. 102). One song that veers from

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such matters that did not receive the single release treatment was Scott’s poignant
“Watching Me,” which interrogates the notion of policing in the Black community and
the movement from community policing to military policing which began in 1981 when
Reagan persuaded congress to pass the Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement Act
as Alexander (2010) outlines. Containing a four-second sample of Roy Ayers’ “No
Stranger to Love,” from the song’s intro and utilizing some sound effects from Marc
Moulin’s 1975 song “Tohubohu Part 1,” Scott integrates the xylophone and clave with
familiar instrumentation of the Rhodes, bass drum, bass guitar, the hi-hat, and a repetitive
yet faint chat of “Watching Me” in the background. Scott utilizes “Watching Me” to
showcase both her spoken word prowess to spit the verses while singing the chorus and
select phrases.
Scott’s “Watching Me” is situated within the degradation of the Reagan era and
its impact on security and safety of inner city neighborhoods.
Damn can I get that to my democracy
and
Equality and privacy
You busy watching me, watching me
That your blind baby
You neglect to see
The drugs coming into my community
Weapons coming into my community
Dirty cops in my community
And you keep saying that I’m free
And you keep saying that I’m free
And you keep saying that I’m free

Scott’s sentiments of desiring democracy, equality, and privacy, while at the same time
illuminating drugs, weapons, and dirty cops entering into her community underscore the
ripple effect of Regan’s politics and policies that enabled the destruction of black
neighborhoods such as Scott’s in North Philadelphia and so many others across America.

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The crack epidemic that would take over these such communities and is the reference
point of drugs in Scott’s “Watching Me,” “illustrate what happens when you have [an]
unprecedented availability of a drug combined with rising social marginality among poor
and working-class people… during the Reagan and Bush years” (Jonnes, 1999, p. 388).
With a change to military policing, that enacted a policy and tactical shift to keep the
community under constant surveillance rather than keeping it safe, combined with
declining federal assistance during and after Reagan’s presidency (Wilson, 2010), the
environment in a lot of neighborhoods like the one Scott describes is one where
individuals are held hostage within economic and systemic parameters.
Living in an inner city where crime and justice exist in racially coded language
(Alexander, 2010) and where an increase in policing through a new breed of law-and-
order (Bunch, 2010), creates an environment where even individuals such as Scott feel a
lack of equality and freedom. Though Jill Scott herself was not relegated to the
underclass that Alexander (2010) emphasizes, particularly with regards to the mass
incarceration of men and women of color and their “closed circuit of perpetual
marginality,” (p. 95) Scott’s thick description of her hood illuminates the conditions of
neighborhoods where a majority of the residents exist within this caste system and how
the community is therefore policed and unassisted.
Since Reagan and his administration decided to wage the War on Drugs in
communities of color (Alexander, 2010; Bunch, 2010; Cockburn & Clair, 1999; Jonnes,
1999; Wilentz, 2009; Wilson, 2010), Scott’s “Watching Me” further details what it is like
to be on the receiving end of the policies that Reagan, and future administrations, further
enacted. As Jonnes (1999) outlines, “[n]o one wanted to be tarred soft on crime

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[therefore] Republicans and Democrats scratched and clawed one another to offer more
draconian amendments [which ultimately resulted in] the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986
[and future acts and amendments that were hard on crime]” (400). Therefore
communities of color, such as the one Scott describes, are the ones that truly see the
outcome of the harsh crime laws enacted during Reagan’s era.
With the loss of blue-collar jobs in inner cities through globalization and
deindustrialization, legitimate employment was declining at a severe rate among inner
city residents and therefore an increase in an incentive to sell drugs appeared (Alexander,
2010). While less than two percent of Americans viewed drugs as the most important
issue facing the United States of America at the time of Reagan’s election (Alexander,
2010), massive media campaigns designed to increase “awareness” of the issue
(Alexander, 2010; Cockburn & Clair, 1999), the visibility of crack cocaine through the
deaths of Len Bias and Don Rogers, (Alexander, 2010; Bunch, 2010) and Newsweek
declaring crack to be the biggest story since Vietnam/Watergate (Alexander, 2010;
Cockburn & Clair, 1999), crack cocaine gained the visibility to push the War on Drugs
and Reagan’s agenda to new heights that truly create the circumstances described in the
select lyrics of Scott’s “Watching Me.”
Acting as a modern day grio, Scott’s thick description offers an incongruent
message. Sellnow’s Illusion of Life perspective invites a notice that the intensity patterns
of “Watching Me”’s beat do not synch. “Watching Me” represents an intensity pattern
through the fast driving tempo and changing meter, dissonant and harsh harmonic tones,
a disjointed melody and phrasing that is staccato, accented, and accelerando, while the
instrumentation is amplified. The lyrics however do not represent a comedic virtual

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experience, but a tragic one as Scott copes with the fate of living in a community ravaged
by Regan’s agenda. This insurgency of the song maybe intentional as the content of
“Watching Me” regards the instability of life in a Black urban community. As Scott
remarked to Ebony Magazine, there is “No question about it, my songs are created from
places I’ve been, something I’ve seen, something I’ve felt. It’s all coming right out of
me,” (Norment, p. 102). Scott continues, “Sometimes I have to sleep to hear the song.
Sometimes they won’t let me sleep. I have vivid dreams, where I see the whole thing…
When it’s time to write, I must.” (Norment, p. 102). “Watching Me” is one of those songs
that won’t allow a listener to sleep with its pulsating beat and powerful imagery of a
community deferred that represent the shock and instability of life, especially Black
urban life from where Scott herself originates. Other songs that engage this life more
explicitly include Scott’s ode to her Black brothers, “Brotha,” and her own
autobiographical tale of “Try.”
Who Is Jill Scott? builds upon the legacy and blueprint of Erykah Badu’s Baduizm
by maintaining the visual functions common to the genre, while expanding the imagery
of Black womanhood, as Scott represents women of varying frames. Speaking to Ebony
Magazine, Scott referenced how hard it was to find herself through the coverage in
magazines and video footage. “Trying to find out who I was, trying to find myself in the
image of the magazines and the TV was just foolish…Everybody has a place. Whether
you are fat or thin, blue-eyed, blind – everybody has a power.” (Norment, p. 104) While
she herself couldn’t see herself in those places and spaces of commodified imagery,
Scott’s visual presence in her videos challenged the prevailing images of the Mammy,
which her body particular body type could lend itself to (Collins 1990). Through “A

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Long Walk,” where she flips the male gaze and allows herself to be viewed as a complex
and fully realized and sexualized woman, to “Gettin’ In The Way,” where Scott
complicates Black female spaces, Jill Scott expands the visual scope of neo-soul in a way
that Erykah Badu was unable to accomplish. Scott also expands the sonic scope of neo-
soul through the incorporation of horns and other percussion instruments that were not
readily found on Baduizm, while maintaining the centralized usage of the fender Rhodes,
a drum kit, bass guitar, and guitar that were central to the original sonic formulation of
neo-soul. Scott also continues the legacy of sampling within neo-soul as she explores
samples on “Slowly Surely” (Moe Koffman’s “Days Gone”), “Watching Me” (Marc
Moulin’s “Tohubohu Part 1” & Roy Ayer’s “No Stranger Love”) “Gettin’ In The Way”
(Pointer Sisters’ “Pinball Number Count”), and “Brotha” (Joe Williams & The Jazz
Orchestra’s “Get Out Of My Life). Lyrically, Jill Scott engages in similar themes, while
distancing herself from the explicit reference of gendered pronouns, consequently
allowing people with other gendered positions to actively engage themselves with the
vivid stories Scott weaves with her lyrics and voice.
Scott received five GRAMMY-nominations including Best New Artist, Best R&B
Album and three subsequent Best Female R&B Vocal Performance nominations in 2001,
2002, and 2003, for her contributions. At the Soul Train Awards in 2001, Scott won Best
R&B/Soul Female Album that same year at the Lady of Soul Awards, she won Best
R&B/Soul Single, Solo for “A Long Walk,” Best R&B/Soul or Rap New Artist, Best
R&B/Soul Soul Album, Solo for Who Is Jill Scott?: Words and Sounds Vol. 1 and Album
of the Year. In addition, her album sold over two million copies in the United States,
therefore becoming certified double platinum by the RIAA. Scott’s debut album was

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released at a time that I would argue was the apex of the genre’s commercial visibility as
D’Angelo’s Voodoo was released earlier that year with Badu’s sophomore album
Mama’s Gun appeared later that year in addition to Musiq Soulchild’s debut album
Aijuswanaseing, India.Arie’s 2001 debut Acoustic Soul and Floetry’s 2002 debut Floetic
all appearing shortly after and during the second wave of neo-soul. If Badu’s Baduizm,
D’Angelo’s Brown Sugar (retroactively), Maxwell’s Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suit and
Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill are regarded as offering a blueprint, then
Jill Scott’s Who is Jill Scott?: Words and Sounds Vol.1 and India.Arie’s Acoustic Soul
began the second wave of neo-soul and cemented the genre into music history past the
typical “seven year cycle” that new music genres often encounter (A. Maddox, personal
communication, March 26, 2015).
Acoustic Soul
The titular reference Who is Jill Scott? begged the question regarding Ms. Scott’s
identity. However, India.Arie’s Acoustic Soul began a conversation or ‘songversation’ ( a
term coined by her aptly titled 2013 album), regarding our conceptions of beauty,
spirituality, self-empowerment, love, and relationships, in a way that introduced a new
sonic formula to neo-soul that differed from earlier sounds. For Pi-Isis, this sonic and
lyrical mixture attracted her to India’s music. “I love her, she’s just so airy and light,
grounded but airy like I think her level of consciousness is always is so high you know
it’s heavenly. Her music is heaven like esoteric, existential, I dig it” (P. Ankhra, personal
communication, February 22, 2015). Acoustic Soul opens with “Intro,” a stripped
acoustic guitar led fifty-second ode to Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Donny Hathaway and
all the musical legends that came before who “opened up a door” for India and her peers

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to effect a change (Arie, 2001). As India’s manager Anasa Troutman reminds us soul
music “is the grandparent of neo-soul” and India’s acknowledgement of the influence of
these pioneers on her, further underscores the lineage connection between neo-soul and
soul music. India.Arie even recognizes her connection to soul music with her interview
with Jet Magazine (2001) remarking, “What I do is a continuation, not a throwback to old
soul music” (p. 61).
Regarding music inspirations, imitating a musical sound that appeals to a
particular target audience, India.Arie also identifies blues as a central competent to her
musical landscape. Midway through her debut, India includes an ode to the blues in
“Interlude,” that maintains the same use of an acoustic guitar as “Intro.” Referencing the
names of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, India.Arie also singles out ‘blues mothers’
(Davis, 1998) such as Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and
Sarah Vaughn whose “memory still lives on in me” (Arie, 2001). In the same Jet (2001)
article, India speaks about the similarities between her music and the blues. “It’s [a] very
real and honest output of emotion into a song…Because of that legacy, my generation
now has an opportunity to candidly state our opinions. That’s what my album is about. I
just wanna be me” (p. 61). Being herself is just what Arie’s intentions were with the
release of her debut single “Video” in February of 2001.
“Video” is remarkable for its acoustic accomplishments. It begins with chimes
that segue way into the acoustic guitar. These stabilize the melody of the song; electric
guitar creeps into the sonic structure of “Video” as well as the maraca (J. Herrera,
personal communication, August 5, 2015). Familiar sounds of the fender Rhodes, drum
kit, and bass guitar also build into the song ahead of the first verse. The acoustic guitar

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licks that stabilize the melody of “Video” are actually a sample from Brick’s 1977 song
“Fun.” This would be the only song on Acoustic Soul that utilized the art of sampling and
the introduction of acoustic guitar to the core sonic structure of neo-soul, and
consequently, this was a musical change that Acoustic Soul and Arie’s career would add
to the constellation of neo-soul. Acoustic guitar was foreign to music listeners at this
musical moment. Many fans didn’t recognize the instrumentation at first. As India.Arie’s
manager remarked: “I remember going into a record store and playing one of India's
songs and somebody being like, ‘Hey what sound is that?’ and I was like, ‘dude it's the
guitar’… It was like alien to the Black music market to hear that kind of stuff. Which is
why it made such a big splash, people were like ‘Whoa what is this? This is different we
don't know what this is’” (A. Troutman, personal communication, April 3, 2015). This
sonic differentiation proved a fruitful launching pad for India.Arie as the song became
her most successful single on the Billboard Hot 100 peaking at number 47 and number 14
on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles and Track chart. In 2002, “Video” was
nominated for four GRAMMY Awards: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best
Female R&B Vocal Performance, and Best R&B song, highlighting the splash that Arie
made with her debut single.
Regarding this aspect of the sound of her music, Arie spoke to Jet Magazine
(2001) about her thoughts on her music and the label neo-soul. “I just call it soul music
and also healing music…I think music has the ability to heal… I think certain instruments
and sounds correspond to certain parts of your body and energy centers. That’s what
those chills are when you hear something you like” (p. 61). “Video” certainly inspired
chills in fans sonically, lyrically and visually as one fan, Tameka wrote in Honey

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Magazine (2002): “As a fan and strong believer in the message of [Arie’s] lyrics, I’m
glad to see that she wants to continue to make beautiful music It’s inspiring to know she
won’t change her style or conform to the entertainment industry’s preference for booty-
shaking videos and misogynistic lyrics” (p. 28).
Lyrically, “Video” resists conventional body image depictions of women as Arie
sings about not being the “average girl from your video and I ain’t built like a
supermodel” (Arie, 2001). Arie challenges the hegemonic beauty standards even through
the song’s lyrics referencing how her “creator didn’t make no mistakes on me,” “how a
lady ain’t what she wears, but what she knows,” and proclaiming that she does not “need
your Silicone, I prefer my own, what God gave me is just fine” (Arie, 2001). Throughout
it all, self-love is core for India.Arie. She challenges the beauty industry’s conceptions of
worth and self-worth and the concept of self-love are the messages she shares with her
listeners. As she sings, she “learned to love myself unconditionally, because I am a
queen.”
Politically charged and socially aware, “Video”’s lyrical content were true to the
intentions of the Atlanta music scene’s “progressive soul [movement]” that likeminded
individuals were calling the burgeoning musical genre (A. Troutman, personal
communication, April 3, 2015). As Anasa, one of the visionaries behind what would be
labeled neo-soul further explained:
And we were calling it progressive soul because it was like – it's not just
that it's new; it's that it's taking – it wants to take us to a different place.
Like we want to move people, we wanted to transform people….What we
really want to highlight was the fact it was – it was music to transform and
uplift you .(A. Troutman, personal communication, April 3, 2015)

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Uplifting and transformative is just what “Video” and the body of work that accompanied
it, Acoustic Soul offered. In the same Honey Magazine (2002) article, another fan L. Irby
wrote in to express how Acoustic Soul “was one of the most uplifting releases of the year
and in spite of the Grammy snubs, if she stays true to herself, she has nowhere to go but
up… to India, thank you for being you” (p 24). The Grammy snubs that this fan
referenced is Arie being nominated for seven Grammy Awards in 2002, including all four
general field awards (Album of the Year, Best New Artist, Song of the Year, Record Of
The Year), yet not winning any of her categories. India.Arie’s night at the Grammy
Awards underscores the lack of respect and acknowledgement shown to numerous Black
female cultural producers labeled neo-soul, for their contributions to the popular music
landscape and culture as a whole.
6
Despite the lack of acknowledgement or formal
awards for her pioneering work, India.Arie’s “Video” offered a congruent message
through Sellnow’s (1996) Illusion of Life paradigm as the release patterns of her musical
score represented the resolution of her experience of finding self-worth and self-love
through the song’s consistent meter, mellow harmonies, and legato vocal phrasings. On
the lyrical side, it is a congruent message because the virtual experience (lyrics)
corresponds to the virtual time (musical score) with lyrics that are dealing with fate
(tragic) and through a backward-looking lens (poetic illusion) that offer a way for
listeners to find their self-love and worth from within. The music video is also congruent
with the lyrical message of Arie’s “Video.”

6
This is one of the reasons why this project was envisioned to bring more attention to these
groundbreaking releases that changed not only music but society as a whole through their counterpublic
rhetorics that challenged ideals held widely in the Black public sphere as well as other public spheres of
influence.

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The video for India.Arie’s “Video” begins with shots of what appears to be
India’s house with a red bicycle out front, an acoustic guitar painted with flowers and a
notepad full of handwritten lyrics. India.Arie subsequently appears and gathers her guitar
to ride her bicycle into town. A shot of the back of her jeans reveals that the phrase ‘love
yourself’ has been stitched onto one of the back pockets as she gathers her things. India is
next seen admiring herself in a mirror placed in a store. When she is mistakenly thought
to be part of a group auditioning for a music video, Arie joins them at the audition. While
these women are shot with the traditional tropes of the male gaze, replete with slow
motion pans of their bodies, Arie herself is visually not treated the same as the other
women; that she herself, is not objectified. Instead Arie flexes her muscles, laughs and
makes fun of the situation, further accentuating why she’s ‘not the average girl from your
video’. India is out of place in the casting context, but she empowers her fellow
auditioners, getting them to loosen up and dance at the end of the audition. The rest of the
video finds India at an orange farm where she stands in front of a billboard that reads:
‘India Queen; Locally Grown with Acoustic Soul.’ In “Video,” India.Aire, engages in
three of neo-soul’s visual functions through the narrative of the video: (1) create Black
female space through her presence on her porch as well as her camaraderie with the video
models during the casting call; (2) occupies public space as she rides her bicycle through
town and browses an outdoor section of a clothing store; and (3) disrupts social spaces as
she playfully interrupts the casting call and disrupts the male gaze.
After the success of “Video,” India released her second single “Brown Skin,” a
smooth ode to the love of all things brown. Beginning with the fender Rhodes and the
bass guitar, the beat is fully realized five seconds into the song as the drum kit enters into

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sonic perspective on top of chimes, the fait sounds of an electric guitar, as well as Arie’s
signature acoustic guitar. Lyrically, the song begins with the chorus with India cooing,
“Brown skin, you know I love your brown skin.” The song centers on India’s love of her
partner’s brown skin asking him “Where are your people from? Maybe Mississippi or an
island apparently your skin has been kissed by the sun.” While India refuses to use
gender pronouns regarding her love, the line “you make me want to Hershey’s kiss your
licorice. Every time I see your lips it makes me think of honey coated chocolate. Your
kisses are worth more than gold to me, I’ll be your Almond Joy and you’ll be my Sugar
Daddy.” makes it clear to her listeners the gender reference of the line. Not withstanding
that lyric, the ambiguity of the rest of the song builds upon Scott’s limited use of gender
pronouns in several of her album’s core songs as Arie leaves the love of brown skin open
to whomever you chose to celebrate, within the confines of Black love. Black love for
Arie, isn’t bound by sexual orientation.
In addition to extending our focus of Black love, Arie also challenges the racist
and sexualized stereotypes that are linked to Blackness. In “On Black Sexuality,” Cornell
West (1999) clarifies, “The myths offer distorted, dehumanized creatures whose bodies—
color of skin, shape of nose and lips, type of hair, size of hips—are already distinguished
from the white norm of beauty and whose feared sexual activities are deemed disgusting,
dirty or funky and considered less acceptable” (p. 515). Arie’s lyrics can be read as a
response to “visceral feelings about black bodies fueled by sexual myths of black women
and men” (West, 1993, p. 83). Through “Brown Skin,” Arie offers a conscious
interrogation of racial and sexist constructs to promote a message of self-love.

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While “Brown Skin” is lyrically open, visually, Arie portrays the song within a
heteronormative framework singing about the male object of her desire once she spots
him outside as she congregates with friends. India later admires him in the park as he
practices capoeira as well as at an open mic night where she performs for an onscreen
audience that mirrors the off-screen audience. In the end, India approaches the man of her
desires and realizes that the object of her affections has been admiring her brown skin as
well and has been sketching drawings of India in all the different places she has been
admiring him. India also adds a nod to her Atlanta musical roots as Cee-Lo Green, a
member of the ATL rap group Goodie Mob serves as the MC for the night at the open
mic session. Regarding the neo-soul video music tropes, India.Arie engages in three of
the six for her video for “Brown Skin” as she (1) creates Black female space, (2) occupies
public space, and (3) reconfigures a Black woman’s position in a romantic relationship.
India creates Black female space during the beginning of the video as she and her
girlfriends convene on the side of the street before interacting with a group of local guys
who are parked on the side of the road. While creating Black female space, India
occupies public space in the streets and later in the park as she both admires and
approaches the object of her desire. Finally, India reconfigures a Black woman’s position
in a romantic relationship by approaching her desired instead of waiting for him to
approach, countering the patriarchal approach to courtship where a woman should be
courted instead of following her.
Following India’s ode to Black love, she next released a self-empowering,
spiritual anthem “Strength, Courage & Wisdom.” The song begins with the tap of a
cymbal followed by the snare drum and bass drum as the acoustic guitar slowly enters

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into the sonic frame. The fender Rhodes is then added and the bass guitar as India begins
to coo “oohs” and “ahhs” ahead of the first verse. The song revolves around the chorus
with the simple, yet affirmative message of “strength, courage, and wisdom, it’s been
inside of me all along.” For India, she had to “step out on faith” as she iterates in the pre-
chorus to find her inner strength, courage, and wisdom and part of it comes from prayer
which she riffs on towards the end of the song stating “now every day I pray for.” India’s
lyrical focal point preaches self-love, self-worth, and self-empowerment to find a better
you above peer pressure/judgment (“’Cause I’m scared of the judgment that may follow”)
procrastination (“Always putting off my living for tomorrow”) self-doubt (“But I’ve
been, too afraid to make a choice”). Sonically the song represents a release pattern
through the song’s consistent meter, mellow harmonies, and legato phrasing, which
proves to be incongruent with the lyrical content. “Strength, Courage, & Wisdom”
focuses on self-preservation and capitalizing on an opportunity to beat the odds, which
for Sellnow’s (1996) Illusion of Life perspective represents a comedic virtual experience.
While these two messages prove to be incongruent within Sellnow’s paradigm, this
rhetorical strategy does not hinder the message and underscores how the instability of
everyday life may make finding inner peace hard. Arie clearly takes advantage of musical
ascription, imitating a musical sound that appeals to a specific audience, to draw listeners
into her message of self-love and self-empowerment as the musical score for “Strength,
Courage, & Wisdom” is similar to fellow neo-soul releases. While this message is not a
popular one on radio, (A. Troutman, personal communication, April 3, 2015; M.
Williams, personal communication, April 11, 2015) due to the musical ascription
(Sellnow, 1996) of the song, “Strength, Courage, & Wisdom” charted at number 76 on

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the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles and Tracks chart despite its tempered single
release, as the song was released to radio only without a video.
Despite the limited support for “Strength, Courage, & Wisdom” India.Arie’s
“Ready for Love,” which she co-wrote with producer Blue Miller was released as the
set’s final single. Beginning with an amplified acoustic guitar, a second acoustic guitar
slowly builds into the second stanza of the first verse as light piano cords, and an upright
bass are added. A cello begins towards the end of the first verse and the song builds to a
crescendo during the bridge where the non-amplified acoustic guitar becomes central to
the musical score along with the piano and violin. The instrumentation then takes a steep
decrescendo during the third stanza for India to coo out the familiar phrase “I am ready
for love” and then builds slowly once again, but never to the same sonic heights as it did
when India belts out “Respect’s the spirit world and thinks with his heart.”
While the musical score is unpredictable at moments with different instruments
weaving in and out of focus throughout “Ready for Love,” the lyrics offer a simple
message as the protagonist, Arie herself, is ready for love and hopes that the object of her
affections gives her a chance (“I just need you to acknowledge I am here If you give me
half a chance I’ll prove this to you”; “Tell me what is enough to prove I am ready for
love”). Arie ponders throughout the song why her desired lover is “hiding from me”
whether it be he is not “ready” or maybe thinks she “need[s] to learn maturity,” Arie asks
that he “lend me your ear” so he can understand where she is coming from. While Arie
references that she wants “a man who loves music, a man who loves art,” the gender
identity of her desire is once again not prominent and central to “Ready for Love”’s
message of wanting to be heard and given a chance by the object of your desire.

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Rhetorically speaking, India.Arie presents a congruent message as the song’s virtual time
(musical score) exhibits tenets of a release pattern and the lyrics can be categorized as
tragic through the Illusion of Life perspective (Sellnow, 1996). Through a slow tempo,
mellow harmonies, long held notes, phrasing that has relied on connected and smooth
vocal movements and the usage of few instruments, “Ready for Love” exhibits the
majority of the categories for a release pattern (Dewey, 1934). The lyrics cope with fate
that is a central component of a tragic virtual experience and aligns with the virtual time
release pattern. India also utilizes lyrical ascription (drawing in listeners by integrating
examples and stories from pop culture) as she draws listeners in by integrating the
familiar theme of desire while introducing neo-soul fans to new instrumentations with the
inclusion of the cello as a central component of the musical score.
The video for “Ready for Love,” relies on only one neo-soul music video trope of
the creation of Black female space as Arie appears performing in a coffee house. Her
performance in this space is also an acknowledgment of her roots—performing in coffee
houses—prior to her signing with a major label, Motown (A. Troutman, personal
communication, April 2, 2015). Soft lighting, candles, and extreme close-ups of various
parts of her face create an intimate mood in the video. The audience in the video is very
small, with some of India.Arie’s musical peers, such as Musiq Soulchild and Glenn
Lewis, being included.
Ultimately, India.Arie’s debut Acoustic Soul assisted in raising the visibility of
neo-soul as a genre and Black female cultural production within that genre. Potentially
due to India.Arie’s shutout at the 44
th
Annual Grammy Awards, the following year a new
award was added for Best Urban/Alternative Performance (W. Dawson, personal

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communication, May 5, 2015) that was presented to “artists who have been influenced by
a cross section of urban music -- from R&B, rap and jazz, to rock and spoken word -- and
whose music is generally that which is outside of mainstream trends” (NARAS, 2002, p.
3). Arie herself would take home the first award in this category for “Little Things,”
which was lifted off of her sophomore album Voyage to India (2002) and her fellow
nominees that year included neo-soul pioneer Erykah Badu (“Love of My Life (Ode to
Hip-Hop)”) and neo-soul group Floetry (“Floetic”). By the time the award was
discontinued in 2012, India.Arie, Jill Scott and Cee-Lo Green would each win the award
twice, while Erykah Badu shared the record for the most nominations with Big Boi (a
member of Atlanta rap duo OutKast) and will.i.am (a member of The Black Eyed Peas),
with three apiece.
While India inadvertently assisted in spurring more critical recognition towards
the neo-soul genre with a new Grammy award category, her contributions sonically to
neo-soul, through the central introduction of the acoustic guitar, should also be noted.
While the neo-soul starter kit revolved around a drum kit, a fender Rhodes, electric
guitar, and bass guitar, India’s reliance on the acoustic guitar as well as the cello (“Ready
to Love”) opened listener’s sonic palates that include more than the traditional sounds
they had heard from the likes of Erykah Badu, D’Angelo, Maxwell, Lauryn Hill and Jill
Scott. While Jill Scott began introducing horns to the sonic equation of neo-soul,
India.Arie playing the guitar herself was inspiring to fans and introduced them to musical
instruments they may have never seen or heard before (T. June, personal communication,
March 2, 2015).

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Having both built on the legacy of Erykah Badu’s Baduizm (1997), it is clear
that both Jill Scott and India.Arie incorporated new sonic elements that were not focal
points of Baduizm’s neo-soul starter kit, mainly horns and acoustic guitar, while still
engaging with similar instruments to attract the fan base that had formed around the neo-
soul sound. Lyrically, both albums stayed true to the themes of love, relationships,
empowerment, self-reflexivity and grio style narratives. Who is Jill Scott built upon this
blueprint and began focusing less on gender pronouns, while at the same time making the
lyrics more accessible for a myriad of individuals within the Black community.
India.Arie’s Acoustic Soul also took this lyrical affinity for genderless pronouns.
Oftentimes Arie’s songs made the lyrical content less explicit (“Brown Skin,” “Ready
for Love,”), while the music videos were more focused on the heteronormative narratives
of love. That is not to say that Arie left out gender pronouns from her songs since
“Promise” and “Back to the Middle” focus on explicit gendered relationships, however
“Nature,” “Always In My Head,” “I See God in You,” “Simple,” “Part of My Life,” and
“Beautiful” all engage aspects of love, life, and spirituality in a way that does not gender
those experiences. In addition to focusing on genderless pronouns, Arie’s music
introduced spirituality as a central component to the lyrical content of neo-soul
(“Strength, Courage, & Wisdom,” “Promise,” “Nature,” “I See God in You”).
Conclusion
At the end of Acoustic Soul’s run, the neo-soul genre was at the apex of its
commercial and critical popularity with Voyage to India seeing its release at the end of
2002, Jill Scott’s Who is Jill Scott? still receiving Grammy nominations well after its
release, and Erykah Badu’s Mama’s Gun (2000) further solidifying the genre’s sound,

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lyrical content and visuals with its singles “Bag Lady,” “Didn’t Cha Know?” and
“Cleva.” Badu’s visual foundations would be maintained by these releases, utilizing five
of the six music video functions (1) referencing well-known Black (wo)men, (2) creating
Black female space, (3) occupying public space, (4) disrupting social space, and (5)
reconfiguring the Black woman’s position in romantic relationships) were utilized by
both Jill Scott and India.Arie during their debut album cycles. Badu’s sense of nostalgia
by harkening back to or bridging the past with the present, would not be visually
recognizable through Jill Scott or India.Arie’s music videos. Jill Scott and India.Arie
though both introduced different images of Black womanhood into the iconography of
neo-soul’s visual style.
As Lara Adekola, a neo-soul fan remarked, “there are not lot of musicians out
there at mainstream, that look like me… and I was able to connect with her [India.Arie]
on that level, as well as other Black female musicians [Jill Scott, Floetry]. I do like
Maxwell and Musiq Soulchild, but in terms of like, what is like to be a Black woman in
the struggles and the experiences that we go through there’s only so few artist out there
that are doing it, and when they do it well, you just like fall in love with it” (L. Adekola,
personal communication, March 17, 2015). For Lara, it just wasn’t hearing these fellow
Black women’s testimonies through their music, but also seeing these women on screens
portraying different Black female bodies and perspectives that she could relate to. Jill
Scott, recognizes and admires her size in an industry obsessed with smaller frames
(Sanchez, 20002) and India does not hide from her blackness but embraces it
unequivocally (“Brown Skin”) in a way that counters public sphere narratives and
depictions of Black women as caricatures and tropes such as the mammy, sapphire

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(independent woman), jezebel, and matriarch (Collins, 1990). These images and counter
narratives inspire Black female fans like Lara as their narratives, struggles, and opinions,
are unapologetically acknowledged, engaged, and celebrated in a cultural space that was
crafted with Black female cultural producers at the forefront of the counterpublic sphere.
Scholar Robin Roberts (1996) underscores this point arguing that music plays an
important role in maintaining a collective identity in some Black communities. For
Roberts (1996) music is experienced on a multiplicity of levels, including the
instrumentation, the relevance of the lyrics, and the imagery of the performance (music
video). The collective identity that neo-soul assists in maintaining is that of Black
womanhood as numerous fans reported throughout this project (L. Adekola, personal
communication, March 17, 2015; A. Maddox, personal communication; March 26, 2015;
M. McSwain, personal communication, February 28, 2015; T. Poindexter, personal
communication, February 16, 2015; N. Sargent, personal communication; February 19,
2015). Scholar Katie Cannon (1998) holds that music is central to the identity and
expression of Blackness:
The music we listen to and sing at home is in the tradition of my ancestors,
musicians who fashioned their songs from biblical lore, traditional African
times, Protestant hymns, and the crucible of their experiences under
slavery. Using their own distinct phrases, improvisational structure,
polyrhythms, and call-and-response patterns, Black women and men
expressed their consciousness an identity as a religious people. Some of
their songs were slow drawn-out “sorrow tunes” that reflected the mood of
suffering in the midst of unspeakable cruelty. (p. 86)

The tradition of music in Black culture is longstanding as Cannon (1998) notes and just
as spirituals are foundational to Black identity and music (Baraka, 1963; Cannon, 1998),

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music has continued to influence and inspire identity formation and communities, such as
neo-soul with particular groups of Black women.
Scott, Arie, and other neo-soul songstresses influence and inspire individual and
collective identity formation through addressing their own realities and take up writer and
womanist Audre Lorde’s (1984) call-to-action in “Poetry Is Not Luxury” to do so through
trusting one’s ways of knowing. “As we come more into touch with our own ancient,
non-European consciousness of living as a situation to be experienced and interacted
with, we learn more and more to cherish our feelings, and to respect those hidden sources
of our power from where true knowledge and, therefore, lasting action comes” (Lorde,
1984, p. 37). Scott, Arie and other neo-soul songstresses enact Lorde’s self-validation
through their cultural production of neo-soul and thusly commit to using their voices to
vocalize agency in the public sphere through the counterpublic musical genre neo-soul.
While Erykah Badu laid the groundwork with both Baduizm (1997) and Mama’s
Gun (2000), both Jill Scott and India.Arie would alter the blueprint to fit their own
unique Black womanhoods, showcasing the diversity of Black female narratives that exist
outside of the public sphere’s consciousness. As Shani Syphrett, a neo-soul fan remarked
about the genre and its messages and images, “I think it's critiquing the idea of what…
blackness is in this day and time. Like [there’s not] one way to be Black… I think the
diversity of neo-soul artist right now really speaks to that…. I definitely see differences
in these people's styles and the way that they write and… the way that they present
themselves” (S. Syphrett, personal communication, March 24, 2015). Through the array
of different neo-soul artists, the complexities of Black womanhood are highlighted and
recognized in a space that affirms fans who are Black women, as well as engages fans

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who are not, potentially broadening of Black womanhood (W. Dawson, personal
communication, May 5, 2015).
While this chapter centered on the debut works of Jill Scott and India.Arie,
Chapter Four: The Real Thing in Stereo further explores the apex of the genre through
Scott’s The Real Thing: Words and Sounds Vol. 3 (2007) and Erykah Badu’s New
Amerykah Part One (4
th
World War) (2008) to investigate the sonic, lyrical, and visual
moves of the genre, while observing the online digital participatory communities that
formed simultaneously. Guiding questions revolve around lyrical, sonic, visual, and
fandom shifts of the genre, including: How does Jill Scott’s The Real Thing (2007) differ
from her debut album Who is Jill Scott? (2000) What changes in lyrical themes are
apparent in the later works of Scott and Badu when compared to Badu’s debut albums?
How have neo-soul visuals changed from 1995 to 2008? What effects do changes have on
the fandom and artists alike? As well as, what successes has the genre experienced?
Inversely, what missteps has the genre encountered?

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CHAPTER FOUR
The Real Thing in Stereo

When Jill Scott released her third album The Real Thing: Words and Sounds Vol.
3 on September 25, 2007, the term ‘neo-soul’ had firmly established itself within the
lexicon of popular culture for roughly a decade. However, my familiarity with the term
and the music implicated in the genre was only just beginning as I began my freshman
year at Northwestern University—immersed in the words and sounds of Scott’s third
album. While I had listened to earlier Jill Scott records at home and enjoyed India.Arie’s
debut album on drives with my Uncle Steve, it was not until I bought Jill Scott’s The Real
Thing at the start of my freshman year that I became a fan of both the music genre and
Scott herself. My conversion from casual listener to fan began with the set’s lead single
“Hate On Me,” which often rang through my headphones as I marched up and down
Sheridan Road, the main campus street each and every day to class. Like most devotees
of any given artist (Bird, 2003; Duffet 2013a, 2013b, 2013c; Fiske, 1992; Gray 2005;
Jenkins, 1992; McKee, 2007), there is a specific moment when one transforms from an
enthusiastic listener into a ‘fan’. Hearing the bravado of “Hate On Me” through my
headphones—as I walked through a predominantly white institution—was such a
moment for me. Experiencing the song gave me the wherewithal to hold my head up in
the face of adversity, and the claims by others that students of color were inferior on
Northwestern’s campus.
Beginning with the blaring vibrato of the trombone combined with a mixture of
programmed drum machine sounds and a drum kit, “Hate On Me” triumphantly arrives
fully formed in eight measures before Scott begins her testament. The instrumentation is

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further fleshed out with familiar sonic elements such as the bass guitar, guitar, as well as
the fender Rhodes. “Hate On Me” represents what Dewey (1934) labels an intensity
pattern as the music increases in volume throughout the sonic structure and displays a
rhythm, harmony, melody, phrasing, and instrumentation that is aligned with his
theoretical framework. Instead of consisting of a slow tempo that is related to a release
pattern, Scott’s “Hate On Me” begins with a fast driving tempo that displays a
syncopated/unpredictable rhythm that changes several times throughout the song, most
notably during the bridge. Scott also utilizes harsh/dissonant harmonies with the horns
section that provide the guiding movement of the song. Regarding the melody both
musically and vocally, Scott utilizes ascending vocals and instrumentation. The phrasing
is also intense through accented (punched) vocal and instrumental notes that at times also
get louder. Finally, Scott utilizes instrumentation that relies on the amplification of the
instruments.
Self-reflexive and unapologetic, Scott’s lyrics pair perfectly with Adam
Blackstone’s instrumentation. Regarding the song’s lyrical content, during promotion for
the album Scott spoke with NPR Look to open up about the song’s subject matter.
Somebody's hating on the pope right now. You know, it is what it is.
People is, I think, it's their nature - some people's nature, in a way, to be
angry or jealous or just spiteful about somebody else's blessings. And the
song came from me experiencing that with my own family - some
members of my family, friends that - I had to cut off a lot of friends or
who I thought were friends in the course of these last seven years. It just -
some people are just angry. And that was my declaration, saying it doesn't
really matter. There's a destiny for everybody, and there's nothing you can
do or say to diminish that. (Martin, 2007)

Inspired through resentment from family and friends, Scott created an anthem in line with
Aretha Franklin’s cover of Curtis Mayfield’s “Respect,” which became a Civil Rights

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anthem geared towards Black women within the Black public sphere who were
oftentimes relegated towards non-leadership/central positions despite their active
involvement and shaping of the movement (Morris, 1986 ;Werner, 2006). Unlike
Aretha’s command for respect, Jill Scott brushes off those who attempt to stand in the
way of her destiny and diminish her light. Scott is not concerned with respect but her own
self-respect as she realizes there is little one can do to dissuade the disrespect/hate of a
hater.
Hate, anger, and fear structure negative affective rhetorical spaces. Song and
sound can expose poetically and confront these with resistance. As the song begins, Scott
echoes this sentiment, “I could give you the world, on a silver platter would it even
matter, you’d still be mad at me.” Instead of concerning herself with changing one’s
opinion, Scott realizes it’s best to ‘do me’ as she proclaims on the chorus to “Hate on me
hater, now or later. Cuz I’m gonna do me, you’ll be mad baby.” Her discovery of self-
worth, self-love, and self-respect shield her from a politics of respectability
(Higginbotham,1993; Nagal, 2003;White, 2001), which attempts to hinder her own
displays of complexity as this middle class ideal engage the suppression of one’s own
desires for the betterment of the Black community. Scott is no longer bogged down with
the opinions that others have of her, and she chooses to live her life on her own terms.
Therefore, as she repeats during the bridge of “Hate On Me,” “You cannot hate on me,
cuz my mind is free.” Scott is no longer trapped within a politics of respectability, as she
exists within the counterpublic sphere of neo-soul (a space she aided in founding)—a
space where Black women like herself can express the multifaceted nature of their lived
experiences.

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Regarding Sellnow’s (1996) Illusion of Life
xxvii
, Scott offers a congruent message
as the virtual time (musical score) and virtual experience (lyrics) correspond to Sellnow’s
paradigm. Sonically and vocally, “Hate On Me” represents an intense pattern as my
personal example outlines while the lyrics relate to Sellnow’s (1996) concept of comedic
and dramatic illusion leaning lyrics. For Sellnow (1996), the theme of comedic lyrics
represents those words that are aimed at self-preservation and in capitalizing on
opportunities to beat the odds. Scott—through her constant proclamation to “hate on me
hater”—directly proclaims that her affirmation of self and self-preservation is no longer
concerned with avoiding judgment. As she states in the first verse, “In reality, I’m gone
be who I be and I don’t feel no fault.” Scott has beat the odds by capitalizing on changing
her mindset to avoid the struggle of attempting to satisfy/please others. Scott also
capitalizes on Sellnow’s (1996) dramatic illusion that represents a forward-looking stance
into the virtual future. Scott is proclaiming in the present as well as the future that one
can hate on her because as she states in the bridge, “her mind is free” and that she will
“fill her destiny” despite one’s hate.
Visually, the music video for “Hate on Me” centers on Scott and only features an
appearance by a young Black girl styled similarly to Scott as well as a brief appearance of
Cornell West and Tavis Smiley. Shot in both color and black-and-white, Scott relies on
three of the six neo-soul music video functions, which include creating Black female
space, occupying social space, as well as disrupting social space. Scott creates Black
female space through her comfort and presence in the garden, one of the primary
locations of the video. She continues to create this Black female space through the
inclusion of the Black girl in the garden. Scott also occupies social space through her

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presence in the garden and disrupts social space as she marches through Los Angeles city
streets belting out lyrics to “Hate on Me.”
In addition to further analyzing the impact of Jill Scott’s The Real Thing (2007)
on the counterpublic sphere of neo-soul, this chapter will also engage with Erykah Badu’s
New Amerykah Part One (4
th
World War) (2008) to investigate the sonic, lyrical, and
visual evolutions of the genre, while observing the growing participatory communities
that formed simultaneously as a result of these evolutions. This chapter revolves around
lyrical, sonic, visual, and fan shifts of the genre, engaging such questions as how does Jill
Scott’s The Real Thing (2007) differ from her debut album Who is Jill Scott (2000)?
What changes in lyrical themes are apparent in the later works of Scott and Badu when
compared to Badu’s debut album? How have neo-soul visuals changed from 1995 to
2008? What effects do these changes have on the fandom and artists alike? What
successes has the genre experienced? Inversely, what missteps has the genre
encountered?
Scott’s ‘The Real Thing’
Scott’s third album The Real Thing: Words & Sounds Vol. 3, cemented Jill Scott
as one of neo-soul’s most profound lyricists as The Rolling Stones underscored in their
review of the album. “But more than Maxwell or D'Angelo, she cares about words, and
no matter how poetically she muses, tracks like the turf-claiming "Real Thing," the erotic
"Crown Royal,"… always situate her in space and time” (Christgau, 2007). That space
and time referenced in The Rolling Stones is neo-soul as the weight of words is a
keystone to the genre that focuses not only on vocal delivery and a free-flowing sonic
landscape, but also on the power of words. The weight of her words for Scott stems from

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her beginnings as a poet. As she revealed throughout the promotion of her debut album,
and during the live recording of “Thickness,” from her first live album Experience: Jill
Scott 826+, she claimed that she “began as a poet and I’ll die as a poet” (Scott, 2001).
This same spirit/approach continues throughout her discography and is put on full display
as The Rolling Stones highlights on The Real Thing beginning with the title track.
“The Real Thing,” beings with familiar sonic elements with the amplified guitar
before the hi-hat and drum kit flesh out the instrumentation. The song further builds as
the electric guitar, trumpet, and saxophone enter into the remainder of the sonic
landscape. “The Real Thing” also contains two samples, one of Mahavishnu Orchestra’s
“You Know You Know” (1971) for the guitar cords as well as OutKast’s
“SpoottieOttieDopaliscious” (1998) for the horns riff found throughout the song’s
structure. The song relies on musical ascription (Gonzalez & Makay, 1983) as the
instruments used are familiar to the cannon of neo-soul music. Scott has utilized the
majority of the instruments before in her past discography sans the prominence of the
electric guitar. The song also represents what Dewey (1934) argued were release patterns,
which are defined as having a gradually slow tempo. “The Real Thing”’s instrumentation
and vocal delivery represent release patterns because the song’s instrumentation
symbolizes the resolution of life experiences as the music and vocal delivery characterize
a gradual consistent meter with the rhythm (Sellnow, 1996). This is communicated
through the slow driving tempo, the consonant/mellow harmonies, the descending
melody of the chorus, the legato (connected and smooth vocal and instrumental phrasing)
nature of the track, as well as the usage of a few key instruments.

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Lyrically, “The Real Thing” centers on Scott’s non-negotiable stance within a
romantic relationship. In order for her to be “Sweeter than your favorite ice cream,” Scott
asserts with bravado “You gotta do right by me, it’s mandatory baby.” Scott will not be
passive in this potential relationship as she’s the real thing and “like Cleopatra Jones I
could set you straight.” Referencing the iconography of Cleopatra Jones, connects Scott’s
message of self-worth and personal power to the likes of the fictional character portrayed
by Pam Greer in the Blacksploitation films of the 1970s, who also characterizes of self-
worth and personal power to a legion of fans. This reference also underscores neo-souls
intimate relationship with Black culture and its place within the Black public sphere.
Utilizing cultural references is a part of Scott’s music; other female neo-soul singers
often reference familiar Black pop culture tropes as well, or create them themselves
(Erykah Badu’s “Tyrone,”), thus bringing the genre closer to the Black public sphere’s
epicenter through lyrical ascription (Gonzalez & Makay, 1983). As Gonzalez and Makay
(1983) have stated, lyrical ascription is when an artist draws listeners in by integrating
examples and stories from pop culture as Scott has done with her reference to Cleopatra
Jones.
In the song’s second verse, Scott further underscores her self-worth and personal
power by referencing everything that she can provide within a relationship: She’s “more
than a toy for your satisfaction” as she can provide guidance ( “When you’re lost, and
you need some focus come see me”), entertainment (“I’m the pay-per-view for the T
screen, your main attraction”), and intellectual candor (“I’ll entice ya mind, I do it all the
time”). However, if her suitor plays games, “that’ll ruin things” and cause her to leave
without flinching.

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Scott is all commanding on “The Real Thing” lyrically and vocally which is
supported by the driving instrumentation. Engaging Sellnow’s (1996) Illusion of Life,
Scott’s lyrics represent a tragic paradigm with a poetic illusion that are congruent with
the release patterns of the instrumentation and vocal delivery. Scott’s lyrics are tragic
because they are self-consummating and cope with fate of her potential relationship
(Sellnow, 1996). As she proclaims in the chorus, Scott has figured out who she is from
past experiences proudly stating, “I’m the real thing, in stereo, I got a little highs, I got a
little lows.” Scott is backward-looking into the virtual past (poetic illusion) informing
her partner of who she is and what she can offer to this potential partnership (Sellnow,
1996). These lyrics paired with the release pattern of the instrumentation and vocal
delivery create the strongest argument through Sellnow’s (1996) paradigm as the virtual
time (musical score) and virtual experience (lyrics) complement one another in a way that
allows for the full message to be more readily comprehended from listening to Scott’s
“The Real Thing.”
Scott’s “Crown Royal” continues with congruent messages. The Rolling Stones
proclaims the song as an “erotic” document that outlines her sexual escapades with a
romantic partner in vivid yet poetic detail (Christgau, 2007). Never cursing or using
sexually explicit words, Scott nonetheless paints a picture that is readily available to her
audience. Paired with just a base guitar, a drum machine, the hi-hat, and piano, the
instrumentation is simple for “Crown Royal,” allowing for Scott’s vocals and words to
take center stage on top of the smooth sonic bed of instrumentation. The instrumentation
of “Crown Royal” communicates a release pattern (Dewey, 1934) due to its slow,
consistent and predicable rhythm, it’s mellow harmonies, its legato and soft vocal

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phrasing and its usage of a few instruments that remain unamplified. Thematically, Scott
copes with the fate of her encounter (tragic virtual experience) through a poetic illusion
that is backward-looking (Sellnow, 1996).
Lyrically, “Crown Royal” represents sexual ecstasy, The liquor’s name is a
metaphor for Scott. She coos repetitively “crown royal on ice” throughout the chorus and
oftentimes when performing it live sings “it’s just a metaphor for something I want more”
during the chorus (Jill Scott, The Greek Theatre, August 19, 2015). For Midori
McSwain, a neo-soul music fan, “Crown Royal” riffs on a neo-soul lyrical theme of
cultural references/ Black nuance as the liquor Crown Royale stands in for Blackness.
“Like even naming [the song after] that drink, right, is kind of a Black thing, if you will.
To me it seems like everything that they're pointing towards is like, Black” (M.
McSwain, personal communication, February 28, 2015).
Through her lyrics, Scott explicitly paints vivid pictures of her sexual encounter
without reverting to explicit language as Terron Austin (personal communication,
February 22, 2015) a fan and former radio station employee commented during our
interview. Lyrics such as “You’re diesel engine, I’m squirtin’ mad oil” as well as “and
your tongue tricks… and you’re so thick and you’re so thick, and you’re so… Crown
Royal on ice” explicitly document Scott’s encounter in a way that showcased the double
standard of radio, as the song received minimal to no airplay as Austin noted. Due to this
action, “Crown Royal” also underscores the censorship of Black female voices in the
public sphere (Dawson, 1995), as well as neo-soul existing as a counterpublic sphere that
highlights the contradictions of feminism, sexuality as well as power.
Everybody else on hip-hop stations was singing, ah skeet, skeet, skeet this,
ah skeet, skeet, skeet, skeet that [basically reiterated sentiments of Lil’ Jon

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& the Eastside Boyz’s song “Aww Skeet Skeet”]. The moment she takes
that same concept and puts it in a sensual adult format [with “Crown
Royal”], then all of a sudden it’s too risqué to even be playing it on the air.
I remember people wouldn’t play that [“Crown Royal”]. I was working for
radio station and they wouldn’t play it. It was just like, wait a minute;
we’ll play Lil John…you got to bleep out every other word just for them
to be playing on the radio. (T. Austin, personal communication, February
22, 2015)
The suppression of Scott’s “Crown Royal” at Black radio despite its similar lyrical
themes to songs at the time by her male rapper contemporaries underscores the continued
marginality of Black female voices in the Black public sphere (Morris, 1986). Scott also
links herself on “Crown Royal” to a legacy of Blues women who as Carby (1998)
outlines “had no respect for sexual taboos or for breaking through the boundaries of
respectability and convention” (p. 482). Through her outright verbal expressions of
pleasure, Scott challenges the very Black middle-class women who engage with her
music to (re)claim their sexuality publicly in a way that speaks past the hush harbor
xxviii

rhetoric of Black female spaces such as the beauty shop, kitchen tables, and/or ladies
nights (Nunley 2007; Nunley 2011).
Scott seductively coos “Crown Royal” on the recorded version; live, she takes the
moment to sermonize the power, pleasure, and joy of claiming one’s own sexuality (Jill
Scott, The Greek Theatre, August 19, 2015). Throughout live performances, Scott
encourages her crowd of mainly Black women to sing along often omitting words during
the pre-chorus (“your tongue tricks, and you’re so thick…”) to actively engage them in
the moment of reclaiming their bodies and sexuality. Scott also visually engages the
crowd, stimulating oral sex on her microphone and massaging the base of the microphone
to indicate an act of sexual pleasure. After finishing her nearly seven-minute rendition of
“Crown Royal,” which also included a dance breakdown at the end where Scott displays

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her body seductively upon the drum kit as she gyrates her body in pleasure, Scott speaks
to the crowd about the theme of the song.

I like to call him the maintenance man. He comes over, he cleans out the
pipes, he handles the business and you say thank you. And then
[sometimes] something happens if it's too good and you're all messed up
in your mind. And it goes the other way around you know, okay? I've seen
a couple of tattoos, okay?” (Jill Scott, The Greek Theatre, August 19,
2015)

Just as blues women before her, Scott utilizes neo-soul as “a discourse that articulates a
cultural and political struggle over sexual relations: a struggle that is directed against the
objectification of female sexuality within a patriarchal order but which also tries to
reclaim women’s bodies as the sexual and sensuous subjects…” (Carby, 1998, p. 474).
While “Crown Royal” acknowledges the pleasure of Black women as sexual and
sensuous subjects, Scott spoke to her fans gathered at The Greek Theatre for the August
2015 concert about the multifaceted nature of sexuality for both men and women.
Sometimes the sex is too good and you get hung-up on ‘the maintenance man’ or even
the maintenance woman as Scott recognizes at the end of her brief verbal call and
response with the audience through the referencing of tattoos she has seen on her bruthas.
Fans and audience members resound in numerous verbal (shrills of yes, mmhmm, and
laughter) and physical affirmations (hands in the air waving in testifying, clapping,
stomping of ones feet) to “Crown Royal” and her postscript of its performance engaging
with Scott’s vocal and visual engagement in the contradictions and complexities of
feminism, sexuality, and the power of a woman’s body.
Further engaging these complexities, Scott utilizes “Epiphany” on The Real Thing
to underscore the struggle of women’s sexuality, stating at the end of her documentation

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of another tryst “but why do I feel so empty?” While Scott initiates and is in control of
her sexual encounter (“dug him for his bank account, but really for his private”; “needed
me some pleasing, jon looking real fat”) and enjoys herself (“pinching on my mountain
peaks is that a sister into? I responded, “Mmmmm,”; “this freaking was incredulent,
decadent”) she is left feeling vacant as if her own initial desires and pleasure were not
ultimately satisfying and she herself had been taken advantage of. Her partner is clearly
satisfied after their encounter (“I put him to sleep, curled all up, spasm all in his feet”) but
the lingering question at the end “but why do I feel so empty?” as the bravado fades from
her voice and Jill poses the question, she opens up a narrative regarding the complexities
of sexuality and sex.
While Scott begins “Epiphany” in control, at the end she questions the encounter
she just documented. Just like the blues women before her broke “out of the boundaries
of the home and [took] their sensuality and sexuality out of the private into the public
sphere” Jill Scott employs “Epiphany” and other intimate songs on The Real Thing to
engage in private conversations in the public sphere through neo-soul music (Carby,
1998, p. 481). Scott reclaims female sexuality from being an objectification of male
desire to a representation of female desire while at the same time highlighting the
complexities of these desires. While “Crown Royal” focuses solely on the representation
of female desire, Scott highlights how the engagement of female desire can sometimes
come up short and still fall into the tropes of male desire. Scott is left feeling empty as
she documents while her partner is left rather satisfied, as he lies asleep next to her at the
conclusion of “Epiphany.”

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In addition to engaging in the complexities of desire, Scott acknowledges the
marginality of Black women within the public sphere through “How Does That Make
You Feel.” Beginning sonically with an amplified acoustic guitar that builds into a
simplistic melody filled with an electric guitar, and a drum kit, Scott laments: How would
it feel to Black men if every Black female vanished? Speaking to NPR’s Michael Martin
regarding the song, Scott emphasizes the intention of “How Does That Make You Feel.”
And I'm saying what if every Black female in the world disappeared? You
know, not just the girlfriend or the wife, but your mother and your sister
and your daughter and niece and all of us? We just disappeared, like the
flash. How would it make you feel, you know? Would you respect us
more then? (Martin, 2007)

Scott’s sentiment at the end of her explanation behind the intentionality of the song
underscores the issue Black women have faced within both the Black public sphere as
well as wider public spheres in general; the lack of respect, visibility, and spaces for
Black women. Specifically in the Black public sphere Scott charges that without Black
women, Black men would be “lost without no one behind the steering wheel.” Her poetic
lyric is a metaphor on how Black women are oftentimes the backbone for the Black
community, yet receive limited visibility and respect for their cultural work (Morris,
1986). Scott also questions her bruthas if they truly realize how important Black women
are. “‘Cause if there was no me, there’d be no you…oooh can you feel me? Is this song
coming through?” While Scott underscores the clear biological inference of the
disappearance of Black women, she also equates such a loss to the eventual loss of Black
men (“With no more cocoas wombs to carry your brown on”) she also charges her
brothers to think about their lives without the inclusion of all Black women, not just in a
sexual relationship, but within the familial sphere as well: “No mamma, no daughter, no

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sistah, no, no sister friends… What would become of you then?”. While never released as
a single, the song acts as an illocutionary act for both Black women and Black men
regarding their relationships to the opposite sex.
An illocutionary act is a complete speech act, made in a typical utterance, that
consists of the delivery of the propositional content of the utterance (including references
and a predicate), and a particular illocutionary force, whereby the speaker asserts
suggests, demands, promises, or vows (Green, 2000). Through “How Does That Make
You Feel?” Scott demands that her listeners rethink their interpersonal relationships with
the opposite sex, more specifically for Black men to respect Black women more. Scott
also calls for Black women to respect themselves more, realizing the power that they
possess in relation to their male counterparts and the community they encompass.
Scott’s third album focuses on interpersonal relationships, highlighted through
the concept of a break-up that engages sex critically. As noted music critic Robert
Christgau (2008) notes, “There's plenty of sex before and after, and the sex has
content…In her timbre, her phrasing and the words she writes in that composition book,
Scott is someone for whom sex is about physical pleasure--not athletic ability, boundary
transgression, novelty or dominance and submission.” While Christgau’s notion of
Scott’s depiction of sex through her vocal timbre, phrasing, and lyrical selection is true,
he misses how Scott’s depiction is transgressive against a politics of respectability. Neo-
soul fandom branches primarily from the Black middle-class where a politics of
respectability stems. According to noted historian Higginbotham (1993), the politics of
respectability finds roots in Black conservatism and the desire to assimilate to white
standards, particularly when the socio-cultural binary of Black female sexuality was

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either virgin or whore. Higginbotham (1993) notes that Baptist churchwomen, who were
instrumental in Reconstruction and the integration of newly freed slaves,
adhered to a politics of respectability that equated public behavior with
individual self-respect and with the advancement of African Americans as
a group. They felt certain that “respectable” behavior in public would earn
their people a measure of esteem from white America, and hence they
strove to win the black lower classʼs psychological allegiance to
temperance, industriousness, thrift, refined manners and Victorian sexual
morals. (p. 14)

The politics of respectability therefore, attempts to mitigate the stigma attached to
controlling imagery as a way for Black women to remove themselves from the societal
gazes and treatments that are linked to the asexual Mammy, insatiable Jezebel,
emasculating Sapphire, and debilitating Matriarch. These four personas, when played out
over time in entertainment performances, reinforce negative views or stigma. Jill Scott
through The Real Thing disrupts these controlling images and reveals the complexities of
Black womanhood, as other Black female entertainers have done before her.
Throughout her discography, Scott offers a variety of perspectives as a fellow Jill
Scott fan Heidi R. Lewis (2013) reveals. “Jill Scott is a beautiful singer/songwriter with
topics in her catalogue ranging from you-tryin’-to-steal-my-man-so-I’m-‘bout-to-beat-
yo’-ass [“Gettin’ In The Way”] to my-man-love-me-and-can’t-nobody-tell-me-nothin’
[“He Loves Me (Lyzel In E Flat)”] to almost everything in-between. She’s complex,
opaque, and talented” (Lewis, 2013). These complexities that Heidi underscores
problematize controlling images of Black womanhood. In her treatise Black Feminist
Thought, noted scholar Patricia Hill Collins (1990) historicizes the nature of controlling
stereotypical images of Black womanhood and explains why this imagery continues to
operate today. Collins (1990) elaborates,

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Race, class and gender oppression could not continue without powerful
ideological justifications for their existences...Portraying African
American women as stereotypical mammies, matriarchs, welfare
recipients, and hot mommas has been essential to the political economy of
domination fostering Black womenʼs oppression. Challenging these
controlling images has long been a core theme in Black Feminist thought.
(p. 67)

This political economy of domination is where Jill Scott and other Black female cultural
producers within neo-soul music find themselves.
While Jill Scott evokes her sensuality and sexuality in the public sphere through
The Real Thing and subsequently offering a cultural work that challenges the controlling
images of Black womanhood, Erykah Badu continues to act as a grio as she underscores
ills occurring within the public sphere through her fourth album New Amerykah Part One
(4
th
World War) (2008).
A New Amerykah
Released roughly five months after Scott’s The Real Thing, sonically New
Amerykah Part One (4
th
World War) differs drastically from Scott’s The Real Thing and
the neo-soul sound Badu facilitated and cemented through Baduizm (1997) and Mama’s
Gun (2000). Music critic Quentin B. Huff (2008) underscores this differentiation in his
review of New Amerykah Part One stating that, “fans who love her debut, Baduizm
(1997), might argue that New Amerykah doesn’t have the distinctive (yet difficult to
define) “neo-soul” flavor that made Baduizm a watershed moment in “modern” R&B
(that is, “post-Thriller” and “after-Marvin”).” As chapter one outlined, Baduizm was a
watershed moment in popular music and Black female cultural production because it not
only cemented a neo-soul sound (a “rimshot snare, Rhodes, bass, maybe a little bit of a
twanging guitar, some background vocals and some horns, if you could afford them” (D.

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Dean, personal communication, March 25, 2015)) but also engages the importance of
lyrics and diversity of lyrical themes such as empowerment, self-reflexivity, and Black
love, while expanding imagery of Black womanhood in the public sphere. While
differing sonically from Badu’s earlier works, New Amerykah Part One still holds onto
the importance of lyrical content that is paramount to the neo-soul counterpublic
movement. Sonically, Badu’s Wolrdwide Underground (2003) begins her shift away
from the neo-soul starter kit as she even proclaimed on the album’s cover art that ‘neo-
soul is dead. Are you afraid of change?’ Worldwide Underground embraces a sonic
change with a free-floating, funky, DC Go-Go vibe that blends drums and rhythms in a
way that puts priority on the drum kit and drum machine over other instruments and
digitized sounds.
New Amerykah Part One takes this proclamation for change a step further with
Badu embracing even more digitized sounds with the album’s opening “Amerykahn
Promise,” which samples the RAMP 1977 song "The American Promise.” “Amerykahn
Promise” focuses on disfranchisement and the hindrance of the American Dream while
portraying America as a land of broken promises (“We take your history,” “and make it a
modern mystery.” “We love to suck you dry”). This album is also one of Badu’s most
overtly political works today as Erykah Badu fan and DJ Midori McSwain underscores.
[New Amerykah] Part One I think is a lot about [political and social
issues]…The way she talks about the government, and there's a track, I
think “Twinkle” is a good one. Yeah, that whole album just takes [you]
through a journey. I think the first track the intro is really, like, it reminds
me of like, the 70s futuristic, it's odd, it's polarizing, but it's 70s futuristic
kind of funk, slave ship almost, is what I was hearing. So yeah, it
definitely, like, towards slavery, nuances of slavery, nuances of the
struggle and Civil Rights movement and Black Panthers and kind of a
militant kind of a stance on Black culture and Black people and what
they're subject to in this country, all over the world, really. (M. McSwain,

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personal communication, February 28, 2015)

This polarizing sound can be heard throughout New Amerykah as Badu flips the sonic
script to disrupt her listener’s expectations and to engage them in these discussions of
struggle that Midori references. This militant stance on Black culture and Black people
that Midori locates within New Amerykah can be heard throughout Badu’s lyrical content
on the album as Badu focuses on identifying problems and ills impacting the Black
community (“Soldier,” “The Cell,” “Twinkle,” “That Hump,”) while offering her
thoughts of perseverance through the struggle (“The Healer,” “Me,” “My People,”
“Telephone”).
Following the album’s opener “Amerykahn Promise,” Badu offers up an ode to
hip-hop culture through “The Healer.” Sonically, “The Healer” does not fit into any
known genre, even the neo-soul sounds that Badu popularized. However, through her
artistic statement, she continues to expand what can be associated musically with neo-
soul. Beginning with a brief snippet from “Buffalo Gals” (1983) from Malcolm McLaren
featuring the World’s Famous Supreme Team, it is an obscure sample that begins before
the Madlib production. For Badu fan and rapper Tarica June, these “hip-hop
connections… made [her]… check [Erykah Badu] out, because [she] was connected to
hip-hop artist[s] that [she] really like[d]” (T. June, personal communication, March 2,
2015). As music critic Sasha Frere-Jones (2008) notes, “bells, unidentifiable knocks, a
lonesome instrument that might be a sitar, or a guitar, and lots of empty space" is the
instrumental backdrop for “The Healer.” The essence of “The Healer,” can be found in
the song’s chorus, with are a series of statements regarding hip-hop, proclaiming it to be
bigger than our social institutions: “it’s bigger than religion,” “it’s bigger than the

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government,” “this one is the healer.” Before referencing how hip-hop is ‘bigger than’
different social institutions, Badu chants various names of God in different religions
(Allah, Jehovah, Yahweh, Jah, and Rastafari), underscoring how hip-hop trumps social
and societal deviations. Speaking with The New York Post, Badu explains the religious
references. “To me, hip-hop is felt in all religions - it has a healing power. I’ve recently
been to Palestine, Jerusalem, Africa and a bunch of other places, and everyone is
listening to hip-hop. There’s something about that kicking snare sound that all kinds of
people find meaning in” (Barracato, 2008). Erykah’s assertion of hip-hop’s inclusion in a
variety of public spheres highlights the power of hip-hop culture, which neo-soul is part
of, to transgress boundaries of race, class, and gender (Abdullah, 2006; Dyson, 1995;
hooks 1994, Perry, 2004; Rose, 1994).
Rap music, which “The Healer” is an ode to, began as a counterpublic sphere as
its rhetorical identity is an arena for hearing suppressed voices and ideas from the
margins (Fraser, 1990; Rose, 1994). Some have claimed that hip-hop music has strayed
from its original origins, claiming that the music genre is dead (Champlain, 2008; Miller-
Rosenberg, 2014; Vito 2014; Williams, 2007), but Badu hold starkly against this notion.
The first verse for “The Healer” begins with a crack against rappers and others
invested in hip-hop who claim that the genre is dead (Champlain, 2008; Miller-
Rosenberg, 2014; Vito 2014; Williams, 2007), with the poignant “We ain't dead said the
children don't believe it. We just made ourselves invisible.” For Badu, some of the
arbiters of hip-hop culture, such as herself, are/were hiding in the worldwide underground
(i.e. the Web) until the world is/was ready for them to reveal themselves again. Badu
reinforces this in the second verse when she commands that she “Told you we ain’t dead

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yet. We been livin’ through your Internet. You don’t have to believe everything you
hear.” Badu’s embracing of technology stems from Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson giving
Badu her first laptop as a Christmas gift in 2004 (Ryzik, 2008). Through this gift, Erykah
began communicating with Questlove, Q-Tip, J Dilla and other producers and began
receiving music that would turn into New Amerykah Part One (McDonnell, 2008; Taylor,
2008). Speaking to Interview Magazine after the album’s release, Badu referenced how it
was the digital world that really sparked her album:
Something woke up in me in 2007, and it came through by way of the
digital world….What we did was my homies would instant message and
iChat me and say, “Come on, E, we got a track for you,” and they would
send me these tracks. I learned GarageBand and began to pull these tracks
onto my Mac and throw vocals underneath. That's how New Amerykah
came about. I claim to be an analog girl, so I'm in this new world,
invading its space. (McDonnell, 2008)

While Badu famously proclaims to be ‘an analog girl in a digital world,’ New Amerykah
opened up the digital public sphere for Badu and reveals her embracing that world both
through the material recordings as well as by referencing it lyrically (“Say reboot,
refresh, restart Fresh page, new day, O.G.'s, new key...”) shows how the advent of
technology, hip-hop culture, neo-soul, as well as the Black public sphere received a push
towards reinvention, which she is offering through her own sonic and lyrical discourses
on New Amerykah. For her, “New Amerykah is a statement that simply says, ‘This is the
beginning of the new world’-for both the slaves and the slave masters. In other words,
everybody has to wake up and see. This new world moves much faster. We don't even
realize how fast we're moving” (McDonnell, 2008).
Badu’s statement as a whole, where people need to ‘wakeup and see’ the
beginning of a new world through the digital public sphere starts from within, which has

140
been a core principle of neo-soul; self-reflexivity. Self-reflexivity is a core principle of
neo-soul that Badu engages explicitly on Baduizm (1997) and even further on New
Amerykah. As Badu proclaims in “The Healer,” “When niggas turn into gods. Walls
come tumblin…” this lyric continues Badu’s references to the Nation of Gods & Earths
that stem back to Baduizm (1997) where it is believed that Black men are gods
themselves. For Badu once Black men (and women) realize their worth, social change
will occur because now they believe in themselves, whereas before, a lack of faith and
hope in oneself hindered ambition and achievement. For Badu, we have to decolonize our
minds before we are able to realize change and New Amerykah is part of this process as it
sonically steps away from the familiar sounds of neo-soul. While artists in neo-soul have
relied on musical ascription (Gonzalez & Makay, 1983) to reference familiar sounds and
instruments within their discography, through Worldwide Underground (2003) and
certainly through New Amerykah (2008), Badu pushes the listener to decolonize her mind
through the embracement and embodiment of different sonic textures that she maybe
unfamiliar with.
Through Sellnow’s (1996) Illunsion of Life Rhetorical Perspective, “The Healer”
represents am incongruent message, as the virtual time (musical score and vocal
performance) and virtual experience (lyrics) are not aligned. This tends to alter the
meaning a listener would understand as she would either consider the lyrics or the music.
For “The Healer,” it’s musical score and vocal performance represents that of a release
pattern with a slow tempo and consistent meter, constant mellow tones, as well
paraphrasing that is vocally soft, smooth and connected. Conversely the lyrics are
comedic through Sellnow’s (1996) paradigm as they focus on self-preservation and

141
capitalizing on opportunity to beat the odds through hip-hop culture. Additionally, the
lyrics have a dramatic illusion that for Sellnow (1996) embodies a forward-looking
perspective into the virtual future with an uncertain destiny (“Say reboot refresh, restart.
“Fresh page, new day, O.G.’s new key). Through “The Healer,” Badu is utilizing
incongruency to underscore the debate behind her message that hip-hop culture is still
vital and important. Badu, who is steeped in hip-hop culture herself through her origins as
a rapper and a DJ, goes against some of her peers have called out the demise of the genre
and culture due to the diminishment of lyrical content within the genre’s major
commercial releases. Therefore, her usage of an incongruent interaction between music
and lyrics is an attempt to gradually lead her listeners to accept a claim (hip-hop is not
dead) that they may not readily accept.
Following Badu’s incongruent message of “The Healer,” New Amerykah launches
into “Me,” a self-reflexive mid-tempo where Badu expounds on her thoughts regarding
her life and the struggles of maturing as a public figure (“Sometimes it hard to move you
see, when you’re growing publicly”). The song begins with a computer reboot sound,
riffing on Badu’s claims for people to ‘reboot’ from the album’s previous song, “The
Healer.” Badu herself heeds her own call and reboots herself through looking back on her
life. Sonically, the song is layered with keyboards, a shuffling drum machine beat, some
horns scattered throughout, and an acoustic guitar. Autobiographical, “Me” highlights the
complexities of Badu’s own womanhood acknowledging that her previous visual
incarnations of herself through previous albums Baduizm (1997) and Mama’s Gun (2000)
(“The Ankhs, the wraps, the plus degrees, and yes even the mysteries”) were still “all
me,” despite the fact that she has distanced herself from them with Worldwide

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Underground (2003) and New Amerykah (2008). Badu then goes on to address her
familial situation, “Had two babies different dudes, and for them both my love was true,”
proclaiming to be unbothered with other people’s assumptions or opinions about her as
she has found strength and resilience from within. She further restates this claim later in
the same verse stating, “But even if the world can’t see, it’s still me.” In the song’s final
verse, before transitioning into a postscript song about her mother’s life with a muted
trumpet, Badu states that she has chosen to follow her own lead (“So many leaders to
obey, but I was born on savior’s day… So I chose me”) and even if “they may try to
erase my face,” that “millions [will] spring up in my place.” These millions that Badu
references are the countless free thinking individuals. “The Healer” encourages listeners
to realize their power from within.
Through the self-empowerment that she documents in “Me,” Badu is able to
break free of societal expectations and controlling images of Black womanhood (Collins,
1990; Collins, 2005; Roberts, 1998). These millions that will spring up in her place also
include members of her fandom, particularly Black women who engage with her
messages through their consumption of her music. For Tarresha Poindexter, a fan of
Erykah Badu’s music, her music often inspires this feeling of “I’m on my powerful Black
woman tip” and “Me” is one of these songs in Badu’s discography that elicits this
reaction from Tarresha (T. Poindexter, personal communication, February 16, 2015).
Expanding on what this ‘Black woman tip’ that Erykah Badu’s music inspires
within her, Tarresha stated:
I feel like her music sort of empowers you to be a woman and
appreciate…the things that make you special, particularly as a Black
woman. Um, and so, especially during, sort of, that emotional turmoil…it

143
[is] nice to be able to be connected to… a source that [is] a little more
uplifting (T. Poindexter, personal communication, February 16, 2015).

Therefore through self-reflexive songs like “Me,” where Erykah is embracing what
makes her special, such as reclaiming and proclaiming proudly her reproductive abilities,
she is challenging controlling images and narratives that attempt to strip Black women of
this power (Collins, 1990; Collins, 2005; Roberts, 1998) while at the same time inspiring
resiliency in her listeners, like Tarresha and others.
In addition, Badu’s lyric that “my ass and legs have gotten thick” stresses her
reclaiming of her body away from controlling images that attempt to shame Black
women for their physical appearance and prowess (Collins, 1990; Roberts, 1998). This
message is more readily discernable for listeners of “Me” as Badu utilizes a congruent
message through Sellnow’s (1996) Illusion of Life Perspective with a virtual time in line
with a release pattern and a virtual experience that is tragic with a poetic illusion. “Me”
represents a release pattern because the song has a consistent slow tempo that utilizes a
few instruments and Badu’s vocal performance is gradual, smooth, and connected.
Regarding the lyrics, “Me” is characterized as a tragic virtual experience with poetic
illusions because the song reveals how she has coped with her fate and the past as she
claims the lessons she has learned which in turn inspire her resiliency.
These personal, yet political messages that arch over New Amerykah continue
with “My People,” a mellow melodic song that features a chant, “Hold on! My people”,
throughout the entire song. The song samples Eddie Kendricks’ 1972 “My People…
Hold On” and in the background of the song’s score, shackles can be heard jingling,
giving off the sonic effect as if Badu is speaking to her people who are enslaved to just

144
hold on. This enslavement she references sonically through the usage of shackles could
regard the mental enslavement of her people (“brothers and sisters”).
This mental enslavement that Badu references can be thought of as stigma.
Individuals can also be stigmatized because of race, nation and/or religious affiliation and
they are marked by “tribal stigma;” which is transmitted through lineage (Goffman, 1963,
p. 4). As has been the case for Black women in America, stigma raises fears of pollution
about a person, though such attributions also can be countered, reversed, or transcended
through the power of rhetoric, which Badu and other neo-soul singer/songwriters attempt
to do through their musical statements and visual presentations.
Considering stigma as rhetorical and cultural activity, Herbert Blumer
(1998) expands George Herbert Mead’s conception of symbolic interactionism —
that individuals engage in symbolic gestures through both verbal and nonverbal
communication. Blumer (1998) notes,
The meaning of a thing for a person grows out of the ways in which other
persons act toward the person with regard to the thing. Their actions
operate to define the thing for the person...Thus symbolic interactionism
sees meanings as social products, as creations that are formed in and
through the defining activities of people as they interact (p. 4-5).

Therefore, if a powerful group of individuals stigmatize a less powerful group, those in
between may also be influenced to stigmatize the less powerful group. This happens so
that less powerful group members can solidify their place within the hierarchy and obey
the norms and values established by those in power. Arguably, such actions constitute
hegemony in practice.
xxix
That is, oftentimes those who are stigmatized conform and
emulate their stigmatizers in an attempt to change their subject position. Thus, it can be
argued that the ideological underpinnings of the politics of respectability are tested

145
through the symbolic actions that are addressed in the performances and unfolding of
popular entertainment as a public culture.
Entertainment and popular culture can reinforce stereotypes that engage stigma.
Carroll (1998) developed a theory of Mundane Extreme Environmental Stress (MEES)
and Black Americans. Carroll suggests that the phenotype of an individual can impact
self-concept. Carroll (1998) notes,
Because looking black is the first visual cue that others have when dealing
with black people, it becomes a very potent criterion regarding thought
and action. Symbolic interactionism underscores the importance of the
way one looks (phenotype) and assumes that your perception of how
others view you, has a great impact on how you view yourself. The
symbolic interactionist tradition stresses the significance of societal
influence upon an individual. Consequently, human behavior is a result of
interaction with oneʼs environment, beyond direct reaction to it. (p. 7)

Music often operates as a vessel for communicating messages about mundane extreme
environmental stress. Alternatively, music can foster public discourse around how Black
bodies, and in this case Black female bodies, may become appreciated in new ways
(Brooks, 2006; Brown, 2008). Therefore, Badu through “My People” references the fact
that her people need to hold on and push through this stigma while the rest of New
Amerykah engages in a discourse that focuses on appreciating the Black body in nuanced
ways through her lyrical content, in addition to commenting more specifically on the
system that creates and operates these stigmas.
This testament of resilience against stigma (“When it gets real rough, rocky and
windy, hold on”) throughout “My People,” unravels into “Soldier,” a song that expresses
understanding and solitary for those facing oppression, as Badu makes explicit references
to Black-on-Black crime, police corruption, and Hurricane Katrina (“I got love for my
folks Baptized when the levy broke”) while taking head and encouraging the Black

146
community to reengage their history. The song begins with a story about Black-on-Black
crime through a young boy who is a good student (“See he's organized and he's on the
ball. Never miss a day of school”) who lives in the ghetto and unfortunately is involved
in a violent crime and passes away (“Cept the brother’s packing heat”; “Cause he saw his
own wings”). Following this story, Badu moves into the chorus section (“What am I
talkin' bout? Everybody know what this song's about. They be trying to hide the history,
but they know who we are, DO-oo you want to see everybody rise to this degree? Raise
ya hands high if you agree, Yesskreeeee”) where she alludes to the plight of people who
live under harsh conditions that stem from hegemonic superstructures and colonial rule
that have created areas of constant conflict (Kelley, 1994; Kelley 1997; Redmond, 2013;
Rose, 1994; Vargas, 2006; Wilson,2010; Williams, 1991). Erykah is preaching that
although oppression through white supremacy—that manifests in social and economic
oppression—correspondingly represses the oppressed and their history, she believes that
we the people have the ability to circumvent this systemic oppression through our own
self-reflexivity in understanding and documenting our own history. Through observing
how the oppressed have overcome situations of subjugation before, we can realize our
own strength and potential to rise up and combat the current paradigms of oppression that
we find ourselves within. Thus, the artist offers a narrative of empowerment through
history.
While Badu points to lessons from the past to overcome current paradigms of
oppression, Badu also cautions those within the Black community who think they have
overcome white supremacy. Stating, “Now to my folks think they living sweet, well they
gone fuck around and push delete,” Badu warns those within the Black community who

147
have found stability, whether that be economic, political, and/or social that this
arrangement is potentially always unstable when you operate within a white supremacy.
Following this warning, Badu encourages her folks to take control of their society
through civil disobedience and protests (“To my folks on the picket line, don’t stop til
you change they mind”; “We gone keep marching on until you hear that freedom song”).
Referencing American history through the Civil Rights Movement as well as the
Women’s Rights Movement, Badu’s words of encouragement stem from systematic
change coming from communities when they did not stop fighting for equality. Badu
ends this notice with an illusion to Harriet Tubman with the lyric “And if you think about
turning back I got the shotgun on ya back. And if you think about turning back I got the
shot gun on your backBLLAAAA (BLAT!).” According to history, Harriet Tubman
carried a shotgun as she escorted newly freed ex-slaves to the north on the Underground
Railroad (Clinton, 2005). The shotgun was said to be a deterrent for any newly freed
slaves that might change his/her mind and decided to return to his/her plantation (Clinton,
2005). It was understood that if an escaped slave returned to the plantation S/he would
surely be tortured and through duress inform slave owners the whereabouts of the other
escapees (Clinton, 2005). Through “Solider,” Badu engages oppression through
consciousness and empowerment as she finds resiliency in history, especially that of a
Black woman abolitionist, and encourages her listeners to do the same.
Produced by Karriem Riggins, “Solider” is a mellow mid-tempo that features a
drum kit, muted flutes, a tambourine, a voice co-signing Badu’s statements with vocal
intonations such as ha, wooh, uh, wo, yeah, and some background vocals. Through
Sellnow’s (1996) Illusion of Life Perspective, “Solider” is an incongruent message

148
because its virtual time and virtual experience are not aligned. The instrumentation for
“Solider” represents a release pattern with its slow tempo and consistent meter, while its
lyrics as outlined above are that of a comedic virtual experience because lyrically
“Solider” is focused on the future and about capitalizing on opportunities to beat the
odds. This combination through the Illusion of Life Perspective is incongruent,
potentially altering the meaning of Badu’s message. While the lyrics are intense, the
musical score with which those lyrics are encountered is smooth and mellow, potentially
allowing a listener to miss the intentionality of “Solider.”
However looking deeper into popular music’s history within the Black public
sphere (Baraka, 1963; Neal 1999; Ward, 19998; Werner, 2006; Von Eschen, 2006), I
would argue “Solider” is masking its true intentions from outsiders with its
instrumentation. Those who the message is not intended for might slip into its syncopated
rhythms and miss Badu’s blatantly political lyrics and messages. However those who
have been oppressed and are seeking a way out of this suppression may connect to the
lyrical content and rise up to Badu’s call-to-action in “Solider.” Therefore, Badu is
utilizing hush harbor rhetoric (Nunley, 2007; Nunley, 2011) to “gain legitimacy in the
public sphere through domesticating [her] rhetoric into the bounds of acceptable debate
by appealing to notions of civility and tolerance” (Nunley, 2007, p. 231).
Civility tends to privilege the politics and values of those constructing and
benefiting from the dominant discourse and through utilizing instrumentation that is
melodic and mellow, Badu connects to the dominant sonic impulse of the ruling class
who prefer mid-tempo mellow music (Rentfrow, et. al (2011). Lyrically though, Badu
engages in the three principles of African-American hush harbor rhetoric in “Solider”: (1)

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nommo, (2) parrhesia, and (3) phronesis. Nommo relates to the power of words and
Badu’s allusions throughout “Solider” privileges remarks as outlined above. Badu
engages in parrhesia as this concept “alludes to fearless, dangerous speech,” which
“Solider” highlights throughout its attacks on the hegemonic superstructure (Nunley,
2011, p. 46). “Solider” also utilizes phronesis, which refers to wisdom, intellect, or virtue,
which Badu gleams from Black history in America (Nunley, 2011). With the utilization
of hush harbor rhetoric, Badu creates and engages in overtly political messages without
the threat of appearing “misunderstood by the general public as angry, hostile, uppity,
arrogant, and uncivil” (Nunley, 2007, p. 231).
These overtly political messages continue throughout the rest of New Amerykah
just as explicitly as they were utilized on the set’s previous tracks. Proceeding “Solider,”
Badu documents the urban decay of a neighborhood ravaged by drugs, crime, and
desperation through a story about a character named Brenda who is a victim of her
circumstances and environment on “The Cell.” “The Cell” leads into “Twinkle,” which
bemoans the status of the Black community due to the failure of various social
institutions such as the prison industrial complex (“I’m addicted now I’m under arrest”),
America’s educational system (“They keep us uneducated”), and healthcare (“Sick and
depressed”). Following the song’s grio nature, “Twinkle” sonically devolves into the
buzzing of keyboards with a speech in the ancient African language of Mdw Ntchr that
then transitions into a rant riffing on Peter Finch’s rant from the 1976 film Network
(Lewis, 2008). The speaker laments about the state of the world and the complacency of
people and as a whole, Philadelphia Weekly’s Craig D. Linsey (2008) describes
“Twinkle” as a “dense inner-city blues,” depicting the same, if not worse ills of Marvin

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Gaye’s own grio anthem “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler),” from his
landmark 1971 album What’s Going On.
After the dense “Twinkle,” Badu moves into her Georgia Anne Muldrow assisted
“Master Teacher,” which riffs on Curtis Mayfield’s 1972 song “Freddie’s Dead.”
Lyrically, “Master Teacher” envisions a higher degree of Black consciousness with the
refrain, “What if there was no niggas, only master teachers?", answering prophetically “I
stay woke.” Badu later commands, “I'm in the search of something new, search inside
me, searching inside you,” revealing that this higher sense of identity is found through
self-reflexivity and other community members within the Black community. Following
“Master Teacher,” Badu segues into “The Hump,” a ballad about drug dependency. Badu
caps off New Amerykah with “Telephone,” an ode to the late J Dilla, who passed away in
2006 from complications from a blood disease. “Telephone,” is both hopefully and filled
with sorrow as Badu continues to sing “fly away to heaven, brother.”
After “Telephone,” the hidden track and New Amerykah’s only official single
“Honey” begins. Before “Honey” officially starts, the track opens with a reprise of
“Amerykahn Promise,” where Badu announces her intentions of releasing Part Two, New
Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh). While released as the set’s lead single,
“Honey” seems out of place on New Amerykah as the lighthearted love song that samples
Nancy Wilson’s “I’m in Love” (1978) does not fit the overtly political and conscious
lyrics of the body of work it is featured on.
Visually, “Honey” is the only song for which Badu releases a music video for and
engages two of the six neo-soul music video functions. While the song is love song, it
creates a sense of nostalgia by harkening back to or bridging the past with the present and

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making reference to well-known Black (wo)men. Directed by Badu and Chris Robinson,
the video was conceptually created by Badu to pay homage to classic records. Set in a
small record store, it follows a customer (Badu) as she digs in the vinyl record crates
looking through a variety of albums where she is depicted within the album artwork.
According to co-director Chris Robinson, “We wanted a video that spoke to Badu's
eclecticism. Those album covers represent all the influences that she embodies” (Giant
Step, 2008). Albums covers that were represented and recreated in the video were Rufus
featuring Chaka Khan (1975), Blue (2006) by Diana Ross, Maggot Brain (1971) by the
Funkadelic, Paid in Full (1987) by Eric B. & Rakim, Honey (1975) by the Ohio Players,
Perfect Angel (1975) by Minnie Riperton, Chameleon (1976) by Labelle, 3 Feet High
and Rising (1989) by De La Soul, Let It Be (1970) by The Beatles, Illmatic (1994) by
Nas, Physical (1981) by Olivia Newton-John, Nightclubbing (1981) by Grace Jones, and
Earth, Wind & Fire’s Head to the Sky (1973). Through the artwork on these different
album covers, Badu creates a sense of nostalgia through referencing classic artists and
albums, while also referencing known Black women (Chaka Khan, Diana Rosss, Patti
LaBelle, Mini Riperton, Grace Jones) and men (Rakim, Nas, Earth, Wind, & Fire).
Conclusion
Visually, the Afrocentric aesthetic that first cemented neo-soul in the late 1990s
and early 2000s through Badu’s head wraps and Ankhs and Jill Scott’s free flowing
printed dresses dissipates for both Badu and Scott in the more contemporary era of neo-
soul. While Badu has pushed further away from the sonic aesthetic of neo-soul that she
pioneered, she and Scott stepped away from the afrocentric and “backpacker” aesthetic
that had come to stereotype neo-soul artists and fans alike (W. Dawson, personal

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communication, May 9, 2015; L. Lora, personal communication, February 28, 2015; S.
Taveras, personal communication, March 6, 2015; M. Williams, personal
communication, April 11, 2015). While the visual aesthetic might have been important on
the outset of neo-soul to differentiate these artists from their contemporaries and
counterparts in other musical genres such as rap and R&B, it became less important once
fans embraced the artists and the neo-soul movement. For Midori McSwain, an Erykah
Badu fan and DJ based in Detroit, she feels as though their visuals became less important
to the cultural and political relevance and significance of their music.

About the aesthetic, I don't necessarily think that was necessarily the
important part. I think that's just kind of what they were doing. If you've
seen interviews with Erykah, she's kind of like…I've become the head
wrap. I don't have to wear it anymore. It's kind of in, all of that's within me
now. I don't need to wear it. I don't need to…Basically, ya'll know what's
up. It's me, that was all me [including the music], I did that. I think that
hold a lot of credit, a lot of value. That she doesn't have to put it on
anymore. It says something [because of the music]. (M. McSwain,
personal communication, February 28, 2015)

For Midori, like other fans interviewed for this project, the visual aesthetic of neo-soul
took on less of an importance as the genre matured because the focal point of the genre
has always been the musical statements the artists are making. Visually, whether through
album covers, music videos, and/or promotional photos, the center of neo-soul has been
the music and not the visual representation of the genre. As Vh1 Soul owner Anthony
Maddox (personal communication, March 26, 2015) stressed, music genres go through a
seven to ten year cycle and as neo-soul matured to its first decade of relevance, the visual
component of it took a backseat to the cultural production of the music and messages that
these Black women singer/songwriters created.

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Will Dawson, a music journalist and fan of neo-soul music emphasized this
evolution of the genre that Anthony Maddox suggested in our interview. For Will, neo-
soul has evolved over the decade plus it had been around when New Amerkayh was
released in 2009 into potentially just a modern version of soul music.
I feel like neo-soul was more the start of a movement, it was underground.
And so it was people from the hoods of Philadelphia, and it was all East
Coast, kind of like Midwest people talking about how they were in their
early 20s and what was going on with their 20s. And so it was more for
the generation that grew up with that. That was more talking to their life.
So yes, they’ve moved on, they’ve got more popular. They got more
production value. However that sounded, their first album sound is not
going to be how their fifth album sounds. So now I think it’s more moved
on to just soul music, because neo was underground. Now they’re
definitely above ground. And they’re still telling the stories, still have the
same type of instrumentation, but it’s just a different, it’s a different
experience now, to me. It’s just a different experience. That doesn’t make
it bad, but I just don’t, I think neo was a point in time, and maybe there’ll
be another movement that comes along that people will call neo
something. But I think now all those people are just like soul singers. And
it’s good, because that’s what happens when you evolve and turn into
something else, a caterpillar to a butterfly. So that’s not necessarily a bad
thing, but I think it has happened, like I think they’ve moved on from the
neo-soul. (W. Dawson, personal communication, May 9, 2015)
This evolution from caterpillar to butterfly that Will underscores with slicker production
and different stories speaks to the commercial success of the genre and the maturity of
the artists behind the music. As Dawson later explained, “once you become in the
mainstream and once you become more popular, once you start doing more things, your
stories change. So the genre changes, because your experience changes” (W. Dawson,
personal communication, May 9, 2015). Jill Scott during the fifteenth anniversary of her
debut album Who is Jill Scott took to Twitter to share how her experiences have changed
since she first recorded her landmark debut. Speaking about the recording of “Slowly
Surely,” Scott (July 18, 2015) wrote that she “Sang the end literally backing out of the
room. Didn’t think about fading [out]. Didn’t know.” A novice in the studio during the

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recording of Who is Jill Scott, Scott’s evolution as a recording artist can be heard when
one compares the sound of her debut album to The Real Thing. Similarly Badu’s
evolution as a recording artist can be heard when one compares Baduizm (1997) to New
Amerykah Part One (2008).
Indeed, the production value and sound of neo-soul has changed; however, its
emphasis on lyrics and storytelling remains a focal point. The lyrical center of this music
features interpersonal relationships, self-reflexivity, as well as politically and socially
conscious lyrics. These themes began with Baduizm and remain crucial to the genre.
Badu, Scott, and other neo-soul peers (India.Arie, Ledisi, and Marsha Ambrosius) utilize
their respected platforms to engage certain lyrical themes more closely.
To sum up, Jill Scott’s The Real Thing centered on interpersonal relationships
with a focus on sexuality that attempted to combat a politics of respectability as well as
controlling images that attempt to limit the complexity of Black womanhood within a
variety of public spheres. These themes, while found on Scott’s debut and sophomore
album Beautiful Human (2004) become foregrounded more forthright than in her
previous musical efforts. Correspondingly, the traces of Badu’s political and social
messages that are found on Baduizm take a more prominent role on New Amerykah as her
discussions of interpersonal relationships are backgrounded in favor of engaging a
multiplicity of public spheres in which she finds herself (hip-hop, Black public sphere,
US government).
As Scoot and Badu matured, the prominence of different themes changed
gradually. The original lyrical tenets of the genre remain intact. For Tarica June, this
focus on a core set of lyrics is because neo-soul is not given to chasing trends; rather the

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genre is anchored in expressing the artist’s point-of-view. “I felt like it was more about
the artist’s perspective and not about like doing what’s hot right now. Which is, kind of,
why I felt like it has a little bit more staying power…there is space for a lot more lyrics to
be in there” (T. June, personal communication, March 2, 2015). Several of my
interviewed subjects thought that as they had matured so had the expressions of the
artists. (P, Ankhra, personal communication, February, 22, 2015; J. Gutierrez, personal
communication, February 24, 2015; W. Dawson, personal communication, May, 9, 2015;
S. Taveras, personal communication, March 6, 2015).
The genre met with a steady decline from 2005 to 2014. While It had matured and
enjoyed commercial success during the late 2000s with releases from Scott and Badu,
two of neo-soul’s heavyweights, with The Real Thing going onto Gold certification from
the RIAA and Badu’s New Amerykah peaking at #2 on the Billboard Top 200 Album
charts, matching the peak of her debut album Baduizm, the frequency of releases from
neo-soul artists began a steady decline during this period (W. Dawson, personal
communication, May 9, 2015; Anthony Maddox, personal communication, March 26,
2015). As several fans noted in our interviews (K. Bennett, personal communication,
April 10, 2015; Durand Bernarr, personal communication, April 9, 2015; T. June,
personal communication, March 2, 2015) Badu became much more known as a touring
artist than a recording artist. Badu herself has made note of this and embraces this fact,
committing to a touring schedule that lasts roughly nine months out of the year (E. Badu,
San Diego Jazz Festival, May 24, 2015). The infrequency of releases from neo-soul’s
‘marquee’ artists (Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, India.Arie, Lauryn Hill, Floetry, Maxwell,
D’Angelo) created a void within the genre. Newer mainstream artists such as Ledisi,

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Marsha Ambrosius (a member of Floetry), Janelle Monaé, and Jazmine Sullivan filled in
but spoke with their own sonic discourses-- riffing off of neo-souls original musical and
lyrical themes. These artists while not always explicitly referenced as neo-soul, continue
the lineage that Erykah Badu began with Baduizm through cultural productions that are
cemented in a Black womanist storyteller perspective.
Storytelling is vital to neo-soul and the cultural work that these Black women
engage with through their musical releases and complimentary live performances. For
Haydee Souffrant, a fan of neo-soul music, it was the storytelling attracted her to the
genre originally. Over time, she has kept tuned to what artists under the moniker neo-soul
release. “So, I started finding that neo-soul had a lot of that same performance and oral
history telling in the music [as West African griot traditions]” (H. Souffrant, personal
communication, March 21, 2015). These traditions for Haydee revolved around stories
that evoked “what it means to be a Black body, what it means to be a Black lover, what it
means to be a Black friend, Black mother, daughter, sister, brother, family, community”.
These stories are central to why she became a fan and continues as a fan of the neo-soul
movement (H. Souffrant, personal communication, March 21, 2015). Being a storyteller
is central to Jill Scott’s intentionality. She says as much to NPR:
Well, I'm a storyteller. So I tell stories. Some of them are mine. Far as how
he may feel, I'm not him, clearly. But I would say to anyone who will date
me in the future or possibly marry me, I'm an artist first. So the light and
the dark is all going to show in the project. It's all going to come in every
album, you know, whether ridiculously happy or miserable. It doesn't
really make a difference. It's all going to come out in the wash. (Martin,
2007)

This sincerity in her music speaks directly to the fraught relationship between
authenticity and sincerity. Neo-soul As a musical movement centers on sincerity in

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making an effort to renegotiate Black women’s positionality within a multiplicity of
public spheres, that include the Black public sphere. While popular culture often seeks to
portray itself as an authentic representation of reality, authenticity seeks to hold identity
and meaning as stable and singular, while sincerity is deployed by social actors to
renegotiate their closeness and distance from various authenticities (Jackson, 2005).
Through her storytelling, Scott renegotiates her place within Blackness and Black
womanhood offering an array of identities that are true to her that do not fall prey to the
singularity of authenticity. Authenticity, Jackson (2005) argues, presumes relationship
between “subjects (who authenticate) and objects…that are interpreted and analyzed
from…outside because they cannot simply speak for themselves” (p. 14-15). Therefore,
Scott and other neo-soul artists remove themselves from this binary of subject/object in
the pursuit of authenticity and use their cultural production to speak for themselves in a
significant and complex fashion through sincerity, allowing these Black women artists to
combat a politics of respectability and engage freely in discussions of political and
societal issues impacting their respected communities.
Neo-soul revolves around how artists and fans choose to interpret and change
both the dominant and Black public sphere perceptions of them as Black women. Thus,
these artists and fans perform neo-soul to center Black women’s issues and concerns
within Black public sphere rhetoric. As the apex of the genre illuminates, the Black
public sphere formed around neo-soul, as it serves a popular political function by
encouraging community building, identity construction and reconstruction, critiques of
public representations of female blackness, and the encouragement of Black romantic
love. Neo-soul, offers a glimpse into the complexities of contemporary Black

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womanhood and an examination of politics of a counterpublic sphere within the larger
Black public’s rhetorical landscape. Looking at the lyrics, music, visual representation,
and fandom of neo-soul have foster a more detailed understanding of the recovery and
opposition the genre offers while providing evidence of how counter the music is heard,
appreciated and received from its fandom within the Black public sphere.

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CHAPTER FIVE
B(l)ack to the Future

As I gather my final thoughts on neo-soul and this project, I find myself in the
back of a mixing room at Raphael Saadiq’s recording studio, listening to some of Cody
Chestnutt’s new music, an artist who himself has been linked to neo-soul . The song
blaring through the speakers as I write is currently entitled “Bullets in the Street and
Blood” and is reminiscent of the grio nature that is a cornerstone of neo-soul. Chestnutt’s
single shares the familiar tones and themes of D’Angelo’s ‘comeback’ album Black
Messiah (2014) and reminds me of the renewed interest in the essence of neo-soul that
revolves around empowerment, love, self-reflexivity, and blackness. These are the key
themes that the genre shares in common. Sound has certainly evolved since Baduizm
(1997) and different artists associated with the term have had their own fraught relations
to it. Nevertheless, the subculture that formed around the genre has found renewed
interest in its ongoing evolution. As we find ourselves in the midst of Black Lives Matter,
I cannot help but link the very ideals represented in the discographies outlined in the
preceding chapters to events currently happening around me.
This conclusion theorizes the current state and future of neo-soul amidst the
emergence of alternative R&B or PBR&B (Pabst Blue Ribbon Rhythm and Blues) and
debunks claims concerning neo-soul’s lack of relevance, particularly those of Marsha
Ambrosius’s Friends & Lovers, Jazmine Sullivan’s Reality Show, Jill Scott’s WOMAN
and Erykah Badu’s But U Caint Use My Phone. B(l)ack to the Future, the chapter’s title,
pulls its reference from one of D’Angelo’s tracks from Black Messiah. I bring critical
enthusiasm to the musical score and lyrical shifts of later Black female cultural works
that are associated with neo-soul. In particular, I feature three aspects of the current

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genre: (1) Neo-soul sustains its roots in Black rhetorical traditions of storytelling. This
form poses a challenge to public communication in the “Gigabit Age” where people are
inundated with messages faster than ever before (Rainie, Anderson, & Connolly, 2014).
(2) Neo-soul maybe represented as a commercial “failure.” Its limits can be attributed to
the rhetorical challenge that an analog-styled rhetoric poses to the Gigabit Age. The root
of neo-soul Black rhetorical traditions (often protected from mainstream infiltration and
appropriation by “hush harbors”) cannot be replicated or amplified clearly in the
augmented (music) realities of tweets, apps and notifications (Nunely, 2007; 2011). (3)
Neo-soul artists are likely either to double down on their original formula or to upgrade
formulas for constructing the sonic. Further, the anticipated upgraded formula competes
for fans in the wake of Pabst Blue Ribbon Rhythm and Blues (PBR&B) and other more
commercially viable musical reincarnations. In conclusion, I argue that neo-soul and its
fandom are still active and rhetorically innovative, even though the more popular
PBR&B genre offers an attractively commoditized and racially sanitized musical form.
In a recent LA Weekly article regarding Black Lives Matter, one of the
movement’s founders Patrisse Cullors reported that: “We’ve chosen the tactic of
disruption…We’ve chosen the tactic of challenging respectability” (Aaron, 2015) This
outlook regarding Black Lives Matters also explains the origins of, and the current spirit
within, neo-soul. Badu, Scott, Arie, and other women embedded within the genre utilized
their cultural productions (music, music videos, live performances, and their own image)
to challenge respectability politics. Recall the original sonic blend by these artists
constituted a sonic disruption when their music and cultural productions arrived in the
late 1990s and early 2000s. Even with subsequent releases from Badu (Worldwide

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Underground (2003), New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) (2008), But U Cain’t
Use My Phone (2015)) and Scott (The Light of the Sun (2011), WOMAN (2015) the sonic
resonances of neo-soul expanded to incorporate other elements outside of the neo-soul
starter kit of a rimshot, a snare drum, a Rhodes piano, bass guitar, and some background
vocals that Badu perfected on both Baduizm (1997) and Mama’s Gun (2000). Steven Feld
(1984) has observed that genres are identified by how artists, musicians, fans, and the
industry reify and differentiate a particular blend of music, lyrics, and stylistic
performance from existing sounds, to ultimately create a discourse about the music. This
fusion is familiar. Individual artists within a given group influence one another, as well as
those outside elements. Together these influences create the unfolding of a genre. As
rhetoricians Campbell and Jamieson (1978) underscore, genres, like constellations, move
together and as a result, “remain in a similar relation to each other despite their varying
positions over time” (p. 25).
While Badu often pushed the sonic boundaries of neo-soul with her subsequent
releases, she was still relationally relevant and in conversation with her fellow neo-
soulsters. Rhetorician Carolyn R. Miller (1984) argues that genre must be centered on
substance or “the action it is used to accomplish” and Badu’s actions, as well as other
neo-soulsters who began pushing the sonic barrier still centered on neo-soul’s core
beliefs. Neo-soul articulates a Black experience, while critiquing patriarchal narratives
and resisting hegemonic constructions of gender and sexuality. This movement offers
music and visual choices that fuse into an indivisible whole that much like constellations
of stars remain in relation to one another across their temporal positioning.

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While Badu and Scott differ sonically, they are very much aligned lyrically and
through their intentionality that is articulated through a study of neo-soul music. These
two distinct artists shared the same themes of empowerment, enlightenment, self-
reflexivity, love, and blackness throughout their musical works. Alongside Queen
Latifah, this trio founded and created the Sugar Water Festival in 2005, a political
statement itself that reified the movement’s connection to Black women. As Badu
outlined during an interview with NBC News’ Terry Wynn II:
You talk about political; everything we [Black women] do is a political
statement from Jill’s hairstyle to Queen Latifah being a cover girl. The
Sugar Water festival, the fact that we [as Black women] own the festival is
a political statement. You don’t have to think about it. It just is. In this
country anything an African American woman does, whether her hair is
permed or pressed is a political statement. (Wynn, 2005)

Badu highlights in her statement, the personal is political, especially regarding the
festival she co-headlines and owns alongside Scott and Latifah. The fact that three Black
women from varying musical intersections can come together and create a concert tour is
a testament to the support and agency of fans, as well as the power these neo-soul artists
have. As legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw notes, “This process of recognizing as social
and systemic what was formerly perceived as isolated and individual has also
characterized the identity politics of African Americans, other people of color, and gays
and lesbians, among others. For all these groups, identity-based politics has been a source
of strength, community, and intellectual development” (p. 1241- 1242). Neo-soul and this
concert series more specifically revolved around the creation of strength, community, and
intellectual development aimed at Black women. Neo-soul is an identity-based movement
with Black women narratives at its core as they utilize their personal stories as political
statements against a litany of injustices. Scott, Badu, and India.Arie have all done this

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throughout their discography as this project has highlighted and the Sugar Water Tour for
Badu was explicitly “about educating, enlightening and entertaining. Queen, Jill and I are
all committed to tapping into the communities [both Black and others] we play—to raise
awareness, in a positive way, of what we can all do create a better world” (Smith, 2005).
While the Sugar Water Festival lasted two years, it is evidence of the agency and
power that these women, both as fans and artists, possess in a creation and maintenance
of a community. When I spoke with one of Erykah Badu’s background singers and fans
of the genre Terron Austin, regarding the possibility of the festival’s return, as it has been
over a decade since its incarnation, he informed me that there has been limited discussion
regarding a return, but that the three women (Badu, Latifah, and Scott) owned the
concept and needed to (re)envision the festival in the current digital public sphere that we
find ourselves in. “I want to know how to breathe new life into it. With the age of
technology alone, they could do so much. Things are a lot different industry wise now so
it’s absolutely essential that they already own it” (T. Austin, personal communication,
June 2, 2015). This reimagining of Sugar Water Festival a decade after its initial creation
opens countless possibilities of how these women create a space that engages both their
existing fan base, but about bringing in younger listeners who are engaging with neo-soul
through sistren and brethren who grew up on neo-soul and are releasing their own music
with ties to the essence of the genre while maintaining a linkage to the current political
climate.
Janelle Monáe, a disciple of neo-soul herself, along with her Wondaland
collective
7
echoes a lot of familiar themes and messages of neo-soul such as

7
The Wonaland collective are artists signed to Monáe’s Wondaland Records who include Jidenna, Roman
GianArthur, Deep Cotton, and St. Beauty. They released Wondaland Presents: The Eephus EP in 2015.

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empowerment, love, self-love, and self-reflexivity. Monáe along with her collective
released a protest song “Hell You Talmbout” (2015), aimed at the very issues of police
brutality that that are evoked in both the work of Scott (“Watching Me,” “My Petition”)
and Badu (“Danger,” “My People,” “Solider,” “Twinkle”). Rapper Kendrick Lamar’s To
Pimp A Butterfly (2015) also reveals his sonic familiarities with neo-soul, incorporating
funk, spoken word and jazz as well as incorporating one of the Soulquarians, Bilal
throughout the project. Lamar expresses his own grio nature revolving around the topics
of self-love, despair, and anger, through a self-reflexive lens steeped in blackness. In
Rolling Stone, Greg Tate called To Pimp a Butterfly “a masterpiece of fiery outrage, deep
jazz and ruthless self-critique” that when paired with D'Angelo’s Black Messiah, made
2015 “the year radical Black politics and for-real Black music resurged in tandem to
converge on the nation's pop mainstream” (Tate, 2015).
This resurgence within the mainstream when paired with Janelle Monáe’s
Wondaland Records collective, Marsha Ambrosius’ Friends & Lovers (2014), Jazmine
Sullivan’s Reality Show (2015), Jill Scott’s [BLACK] WOMAN (2015), and Erykah
Badu’s But U Cain’t Use My Phone (2015) includes Black female voices at the center.
While Lamar and D’Angelo’s musical releases recall radical Black politics for noted
music and cultural critic Greg Tate, Ambrosius’ Friends & Lovers, Sullivan’s Reality
Show, Scott’s Woman, and Badu’s But U Cain’t Use My Phone are also radical Black
musical works that engage societal treatments and understandings of Black women that
are necessary to engage with and unpack during our era of Black Lives Matter where
calls for Trans Lives Matter and Black Women’s Lives Matter are often echoed in the

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same breath. These aforementioned works are just a few recent instances that recall a
return to the neo-soul aesthetic, whether lyrical, musical, and/or visual.
At its core, neo-soul revolves around love, more specifically Black love. Whether
it is self-love, love for another, or the physical act, the majority of neo-soul releases
embrace this personal act as very political and necessary. June Jordan (1990) describes
love as a transformational process entrenched in the elimination of hate in hearts and
minds of self and others. In her essay “Where is the Love?” she describes this
transformational process further:
I must undertake to love myself, and respect myself as though my very life
depends on self-love and self-respect. It means that I must seek to cleanse
myself of the hatred and contempt that surround and permeate my identity
as a woman and a Black human being in this world. It means that the
achievement of self-love and respect will require hourly vigilance. It
means that I am entering my soul in struggle that will most certainly
transform all peoples of the earth: the movement into self-love, self-
respect and self-determination is the movement now galvanizing the true
majority of human beings everywhere. This movement tests the viability
of a moral idea: that legitimacy of any status quo, any governing force,
must be measured according to the experience of those who are,
comparatively, powerless. (Jordan, 1990, p. 174)

Jordan reveals that hatred and disdain for blackness and womanhood are at the roots of
society’s oppression. Therefore, the ability, desire, and act of loving the complexities of
one’s blackness and Black womanhood are a revolutionary act against a society bent on
the maintenance of hatred and contempt around these identities. As Alice Walker (1983)
has explored, revolutionary change can only come via a collective sense of agency
developed through self-love. Walker (1983) asserts a natural extension of self-love as
“Loves the Folk” and Badu, Scott, Arie, Ambrosius, Sullivan, and others demonstrate a
similar engagement through their music to connect their fans with this transformational

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act of love that seeks to foster connectivity with those who embrace self-love and loving
others (p. 370).
To explore this message of love neo-soul relies on its lyrical content and the
tradition of oral storytelling to engage its fandom. Haydee Souffrant, a fan of neo-soul
music, as referenced before found “that neo-soul had a lot of that same performance and
oral history telling in the music [as West African griot traditions]” (H. Souffrant, personal
communication, March 21, 2015). These traditions for Haydee revolved around stories
that evoked “what it means to be a Black body, what it means to be a Black lover, what it
means to be a Black friend, Black mother, daughter, sister, brother, family, community”
and these themes are central to the reason she became a fan and continues to be a fan of
the neo-soul movement (H. Souffrant, personal communication, March 21, 2015).
Haydee, continues, “Now for [Black] women, I think neo-soul was a catalyst for being
able to tell the women’s story, the Black woman story” (H. Souffrant, personal
communication, March 21, 2015). This focus on storytelling is not unique to neo-soul as
music scholar Samuel A. Floyd Jr. (1995) underscores noting how melodic, rhythmic and
textual influences have always inspired Black music. The blueprint of female artists
engaging in storytelling within neo-soul from Badu, Arie, and Scott are only further
underscored by more recent releases from neo-soul and associated artists that exist within
the legacy of the genre.
Jazmine Sullivan’s latest album entitled Reality Show (2015) implores this Black
rhetorical tradition. After a five-year absence from music with her sophomore album
Love Me Back (2010), Sullivan returned because she had experiences to share with her
fans. Speaking with Billboard Sullivan opened up telling the music publication that, “I

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had been through a lot and I don't need to just sit on the stuff that I've been through …I
just felt like I had a story to share” (Leight, 2015). These stories as Billboard highlighted
(Leight, 2005) were inspired from her own personal struggles and partially from reality
TV, particularly VH1’s Love & Hip-Hop: Atlanta. Sullivan named the album Reality
Show because even she “was affected by it… that’s all [she] watched” during her hiatus
from music (Leight, 2015). Stories regarding reality TV culture inspired the album’s third
single “Mascara,” a satirical tale regarding the social media lives of Black women.
Speaking to MusicXclusivesTV while promoting the album Sullivan stated:
I was looking at videos girls [uploaded on Instagram], and I was looking at
each of their pages, and [they all] looked like a carbon copy of [each]
other, and I was like, ‘Wow, their lives look so similar’. [… From] the
way they pose, to their bodies– the way their bodies looked– to their
lifestyle, [they] all looked like the other. I felt like that is something I
should document. If only to look back, I feel like this album would be like
a time capsule where we could look back and see how we were affected by
society, or how society was at a certain time. (Williams, 2015)

It could be easy for Sullivan to chastise the Instagram models she references on
“Mascara,” but instead of taking a simplistic approach to their lives, Sullivan revels in the
complexity of their Black womanhood. “Mascara” beings with the catchy verse “Yeah
my hair and my ass fake, But so what? I get my rent paid with it. And my tits get me trips
to places I can’t pronounce right. He said he’ll keep it coming if I keep my body tight.”
Sullivan begins this in-depth engagement with Instagram through a tongue-and-cheek
exploration of the visual imagery of what she sees while cruising the site. Sullivan
quickly complicates our understanding of these women with “Mascara”’s pre-chorus.
“Most people think I’m shallow cause I’m always dressed like I’m going out to the club
but I gotta keep up. Cause there’s new chicks popping up every day and they want the
same thing.” Sullivan offers a nuanced understanding of these women and their

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deliberation behind their image. As Dara Tafakari (2015) notes on her blog about
“Mascara,” “The pressure to look “perfect” can absolutely be about the competition it
takes to stand out among scores of women trying to replace you–because you are
replaceable [as a Black woman].” “Mascara,” then is a story that resists the simplicity
that reality TV showcases about these woman’s lives and instead of preaching to or
laughing at these women, Sullivan delves into the mindset behind their images and
actions. Sullivan therefore begs her fans on “Mascara” to complicate their understanding
of these images of Black women that saturate our daily lives.
Sullivan’s complication of reality show stars and Instagram models is important
alongside neo-soul inspired and neo-soul labeled female artists who continue to offer a
nuanced perspective on Black womanhood. Speaking with VH1 Soul owner Anthony
Maddox, this point becomes even more vital as he sees empowerment and engagement of
Black gender politics coming from TV through shows like Scandal, How to Get Away
with Murder, Being Mary Jane, and Empire. “Gender politics and really, empowerment is
not coming through music anymore for women right now, it’s coming through other areas
[like TV]. People want entertainment to their music right now…. Like no one wants to
emulate Jazmine Sullivan or Janelle Monáe you know” (A. Maddox, personal
communication, March 26, 2015). While I agree with Maddox’s point that narratives of
Black womanhood that engage empowerment and gender politics, have exploded on
television, shows like Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder, Being Mary Jane, and
Empire offer similar narrative tropes in terms of their lead Black female characters. For
those unfamiliar with these shows, the lead female characters are all shown as the strong

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Black woman who has a highly successful professional life that is juxtaposed against
troubled personal lives.
While these shows attempt to show the complexity of these Black female
characters through their personal lives, each show follows a similar model of a highly
successful Black woman who has personal issues with which she must deal. Therefore,
despite the increased visibility of Black women on television, the diversity of their
representation is left rather uncomplicated. While it is great that an increase of visual
representation has burgeoned on television over the last few years, it would be even
better if these fictional characters were as diverse as the Black women watching the
shows. While Sullivan is not a reality show star or Instagram model, “Mascara” and other
songs on Reality Show transport listeners and fans into different depictions of Black
womanhood both from this world and her own, in a way that television’s primetime
lineup is currently unable to access.
Just like Sullivan, who offers various depictions of Black womanhood on Reality
Show, Marsha Ambrosius’s sophomore album Friends & Lovers (2014) chronicles the
themes of a friendship revolving/devolving into a sexual relationship. Ambrosius
originally from Floetry fame, a British duo linked to neo-soul
8
, began her solo career
with her debut album Late Nights & Early Mornings (2011) and followed up some of the
stories form this album on Friends & Lovers. One of the songs that attracted a lot of
attention was Ambrosius’s story about being the other woman on “Shoes.” When

8
Speaking with Ambrosius through email correspondence, she opened up about being linked to neo-soul
early on in her career during the early 2000s. “Neo-soul was a term allegedly coined by Kedar at Motown.
Prior to us considered mainstream enough to be marketed, we considered ourselves Floetic. Floetry was
ours. Once lumped into what was happening in music at that time, there was a resurgence of soul, new soul,
neo-soul. And we were a part of that movement by default. Same producers, same city [of Philadelphia]
etc. The industry puts you where they want you. People do the same. I was cool with it as long as you could
find us” (M. Ambrosius, personal communication, February 28, 2015).

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speaking to The Breakfast Club (2014) Ambrosius opened up about the inspiration behind
the song.
Really it was from the first album Late Nights & Early Mornings and then
I was like, ‘why doesn’t anyone ever do a sequel or a part two to whatever
a song is? Like songs are only three minutes long, I need to extend what
actually happened. So I’m like late night, early morning. That next
morning when I woke up, it was with someone I wasn’t supposed to be
with and it was all because the D[ick] was good and I was only there
because of that. [Charlamagne Tha God: Wow so you were the side
chick?] Yeah, unintentionally… because I was being selfish I just wanted
the D and that came with all of the consequences with me knowing that he
possibly had someone else. [Charlamagne Tha God: So you knew that he
had someone else?] Oh yeah, telling me they weren’t together no more,
they broke up, all this other shit…. We were bs-ing each other because
you can’t bs someone for three years. Three years is too long to be bs-ing
people [Charlamagne Tha God: Three years? That’s mistress status]. Yeah
I was in. I had a toothbrush, panties, a drawer… that’s why I say in the
song, it’s collecting your belongings and realizing that ‘those shoes don’t
even belong to me because they aren’t even my size, so I’m in someone
else’s space. This isn’t my home, but I keep coming back here. Why? The
D.

Just as neo-soul fan Janderie Gutierrez (personal communication, February 24, 2015)
enjoyed Jill Scott’s “The Way” because it talked about “a common story that [she’d]
never heard a song written about” before, Ambrosius’s “Shoes” revolves around a
common theme of infidelity and desire, written from the perspective of a woman who
knows she isn’t in an ideal relationship but can’t leave. Instead of placing the blame on
her partner, Ambrosius takes responsibility for her actions and own desire for ‘the D’
(“And I want some more and it puts me out of my fucking mind”), offering up a varied
perspective on cheating. “Shoes” is unique as the typical musical trope regarding
cheating from a female vocalist perspective revolves around a woman’s anguish that her
lover is cheating on her. Ambrosius flips the script, copping to her agency in the situation
as well as the complexities of an affair through the song’s bridge, admitting to falling

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emotionally for her lover even against her original claims of a strictly physical affair.
“Pretty bad to feel/ Cause I believe I’m better for you than she is/ But you milk the cow
for free/ And I had said I wouldn't be the one for you/It’s pretty bold of me to say and
even bolder of me to do/But ya loving makes me weak and I’m still over here, now what
am I to do?” While some might attempt to chastise or shame Ambrosius as Charlamagne
Tha God attempts during their interview, calling her a freak for documenting her
sexuality on record, Ambrosius pushes back against this politics of respectability led
claim insisting, “No, I'm absolutely normal. People just don't talk about their sexuality as
comfortably as I do” (The Breakfast Club, 2014).
What is important about Ambrosius and other neo-soul linked/labeled women
such as Jazmine Sullivan, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, and India Arie is that their musical
discographies unapologetically embrace Black female sexuality and desire through their
storytelling. As this project has outlined, neo-soul is a music genre mainly consumed by
Black middle-class women who historically have subscribed to a politics of respectability
(Higginbotham, 1993; White, 2001). With the overt themes of Black sexuality and desire
expressed in the music that these women are consuming, neo-soul songstresses continue
within the legacy of blues women and their soul mothers who pushed their listeners and
fans to engages explicitly and open with their sexuality (Carby, 1999; Davis, 1999;
Werner, 2006). The Black rhetorical tradition of storytelling is vital to the engagement of
these concepts in neo-soul. Meanwhile, claims about music’s diminished storytelling
capabilities are on the rise (Seibert, 2015) and as we continue to embrace the Gigabit Age
where we are inundated with a variety of messages like never before, storytelling appears
to be a hindrance to the genre of neo-soul (Rainie, Anderson, & Connolly, 2014). For

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journalist Dustin J. Seibert (2015), “After Maxwell and a handful of dope artists from the
turn-of-the-century “neo-soul” movement, shit started going downhill.” Seibert (2015)
claims that although R&B got progressively poppier, vocals still mattered, but “the
biggest differences were a decreased emphasis on live instrumentation and an increased
emphasis on image [over lyrics].” As writer and neo-soul fan, Will Dawson (personal
communication, May 9, 2015) explains, neo-soul is
always going to be talking about something that either happened to them
or something that is relatable to you… I think that’s what made it so
appealing. A lot of R&B today, it steered away from that. Like they’re
talking about how good a girl was, how they can beat it up, they’re going
to have a rapper on the hook. But neo-soul’s always going to be based on
that grown and sexy, what happened to me last year type of situations. So I
like that about it. That’s what’s drew me to it.

This reliance on storytelling then might be a hindrance to the genre’s success as popular
music has shifted away from storytelling and is more about a catchy chorus than an actual
song (Seibert, 2015). As neo-soul fan Haydee Souffrant (personal communication,
March 21, 2015) underscores, “neo-soul is kind of like a take it or leave it music genre.
So you're either engaging in it completely or at least like over 75%...so it can be very
hard for people to want to engage with it without feeling like it's for them or part of
them” potentially because of its reliance on the Black rhetorical tradition of storytelling.
Since neo-soul relies on Black rhetorical traditions and engages overtly with
blackness, the genre could be viewed as a commercial failure as the hush harbor
rhetorical engagement of the genre does not translate well in an era of amplification
through tweets, apps, and notifications. Hush harbors offer a sort of enclave for Blacks;
hush harbors are necessary “to the maintenance, circulation, and affirmation of African
American knowledge” that is often barred from the public sphere (Nunley, 2011, p.24).

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In the Gigabit Age, hush harbor rhetoric can be harder to encode as decoding of culturally
specific references occurs faster with a simple Google search. Web 2.0 advances like
Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, have also publicized communication that
used to be reserved for enclaves. Communication scholar Sarah Florini (2014) argues that
without reliable signifiers of racial difference (e.g., deceptive avatars), Black users of
social media often perform their identities through displays of cultural competence and
knowledge. The linguistic practice of signifyin’, which deploys figurative language,
indirectness, and wordplay as a means to convey multiple layers of meaning, serves as a
resource for the performance of Black cultural identity. Focusing on Twitter, Florini
(2014) misses the point that other individuals who do not ascribe to blackness offline can
imitate and pass as Black online through the accrual of cultural and social competency
within the signifying process and the tools needed to ‘perform blackness’ through the
paradigm she has outlined. Therefore, only the imagined blackness exists on Twitter and
other social media platform, which is in direct opposition with hush harbor rhetorics such
as neo-soul that are designed to engage directly with Black communities.
Since racial identity is nearly always indiscernible online, and neo-soul directly
engages blackness, this imagined blackness possesses a threat to a genre steeped in both
Black love and Black liberation. As scholar Brian Ward (1998) asserts, during the peak of
soul music, “its heroes did help to shape the ways in which people–especially young
people–perceived the world, sorted out its heroes form its villains, and evaluated the
relationship between its rights and its wrongs” (p. 33) For most Blacks as Ward (1998)
acknowledges soul music in equally concerned with Black love as it is with Black
liberation. Noted R&B and soul music blog Singersroom believes that this direct

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association to blackness was a detriment to the genre during the Gigabit age. “Neo-Soul
is definitely still a great sub-genre, but a lot of artists do not want to be put in that box.
They have lost a lot of their star power to success. Artists like Erykah Badu, Maxwell,
Lauryn Hill and D'Angelo have become so big that they have outgrown the sub-genre
called Neo Soul. In this globalized day and age, people do not want to be put in that black
music box, even if its not just black music. Perception is everything and Neo Soul has
that perception of being solely for the black folks” (Dunbar, 2013). While I would agree
with the Singersroom critique that the perception is that neo-soul was associated solely
for Black folks, I also feel as though neo-soul being steeped in blackness and the
rhetorical traditions of storytelling and signifying potentially face hostility through Web
2.0 technology because it is hard to gauge who are members of the neo-soul community
and who are not.
I run a Facebook fan page for neo-soul songstress Ledisi with over 12,000 fans,
however it is hard to figure out who are genuine fans of Ledisi and who are internet trolls
trying to disrupt the space I created for fans to engage with her music online. The group
was originally public allowing anyone to join and comment, however after the
community was overrun with bots and internet trolls posting unrelated messages,
members of the community urged me to make our group private. Now, members must be
approved to join the group in addition to their posts being approved. This has hindered
group communication as message are constantly monitored, which is in direct opposition
to hush harbor rhetoric which exists in channels without surveillance.
Finally, given the current techno-cultural landscape we find ourselves in, I believe
neo-soul artists will either double down on their original formula or upgrade their

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formula for constructing the sonic—using fewer live instrumentation and more synthetic
electronic dance music (EDM) baselines. Neo-soul labeled artists have opted to both
double down on their original formula as well as upgrade their sonic sounds, sometimes
within the same body of work. Jill Scott on WOMAN finds solace in the familiar sounds
of neo-soul on such cuts as “Can’t Wait,” “Fool’s Gold,” “Closure,” “You Don’t Know,”
and “Jahraymecofasola,” which further engrain her sound to the familiar sounds of her
discography. Meanwhile, Scott challenges her fans and listeners to embrace retro big-
band soul on songs such as “Run Run Run,” and “Coming To You,” which sound fresh
out of the 1960s or 1970s soul sensibility, devoid of hip-hop sonic references. Scott once
again pushes the boundaries of neo-soul, as she did with the incorporation of horns in her
earlier works to include country music references on “Back Together,” which feature
country twang on the guitar licks and a downbeat drum rhythm.
Badu on the other hand has opted to upgrade her sonic formula as she has done in
the past with Worldwide Underground (2003) as well as New Amerykah Part One (4
th

World War) (2008). From the songs that Badu has released from But U Cain’t Use My
Phone (2015), Badu has embraced the upgraded formula of EDM influenced
instrumentation that invite less use of background vocals and more layered vocals, with
less vocal range and more traditional rap delivery and content, as well. The first offering
from But U Cain’t Use My Phone is Badu’s cover of rapper Drake’s “Hotline Bling.”
Using the same beat as the original and riffing on the original lyrics, Badu’s version
incorporates a reference to her former lover André 3000 with a sample of “Ms. Jackson”
appearing later in the song. Badu also incorporates a bridge delivered in the form of a
voicemail that separates her creation from Drake’s original. Badu’s “Hotline Bling But

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You Caint Use My Phone Mix” through is eerily similar to Drake’s, as the
instrumentation and delivery do not stray far from the original.
Badu’s second offering from her mixtape was the repetitive “Phone Down,”
which continually repeats the phrase “I can make you put your phone down.” Featuring
instrumentation that relies heavy on the drum machine, Badu’s “Phone Down” employs
production similar to Pabst Blue Ribbon Rhythm and Blues (PBR&B), which “focuses on
the mood and heavy emotions” (Dunbar, 2013). Spin Magazine’s Barry Walters (2013)
characterizes this sound as an "exchange between EDM, rock, hip hop and R&B's
commercial avant-garde", and references Frank Ocean's Channel Orange, Miguel's
Kaleidoscope Dream, Drake's Take Care and Usher's Looking 4 Myself as prime
examples of this subgenre. While entering this sonic territory, Badu’s ode to the ability to
make one put his phone down amidst the digital times in which we live is oddly romantic
against our constant connection to the cellular devices. Though sonically, the song plays
into the tropes of alternative R&B, lyrically the song can read as a critique of our
incessant connection to the digital public sphere through our phones at the detriment of
face-to-face communication. Oddly enough, on New Amerykah Part One (4
th
World War)
(2008) Badu spoke of the promise of the digital public sphere but years later as Web 2.0
technology has revolutionized the way we communicate on the net, Badu’s “Phone
Down” can be read as an anthem attempting to regain the intimacy of in-person
communication.
While these three features potentially characterize neo-soul music and its
counterpublic sphere in 2016, almost twenty years after the genre’s inception, it is
important to remember that all of these women associated with the neo-soul offer a Black

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women-centered intersectional critique through their musical and visual performances
inspired by their exploitation on the basis of race, gender, class, and sexuality. Just as
scholar Daphne Brooks (2007) argues that Beyoncé and Mary J. Blige, “mark a new era
of protest singing that sonically resists, revises, and reinvents the politics of black female
hypervisibility in the American cultural imaginary,” so too do these neo-soul women (p.
183). Their music videos centered new visibilities around topics, lyrics, and performance.
Six functions are featured: (1) creating a sense of nostalgia by harkening back to or
bridging the past with the present; (2) making references to well-known Black (wo)man;
(3) creating Black female space; (4) occupying (mostly city streets) space; (5) disrupting
space; (6) refiguring Black woman’s positions in romantic relationships. Lyrics extend
these themes into advocacy for Black love and Black liberation through empowerment,
self-reflexivity, and love.
9
The video’s grio storytelling offered an alternative cultural
space by highlighting ‘what’s missing now’ in hip-hop culture and R&B music. Thus,
neo-soul performance embraces a wide array of Black female expressions making
popular message-oriented music, gospel and jazz influenced vocalizations, the
performance of live instrumentation, and an openness to sonic experimentation. Just as
Black women subscribe to a variety of forms of Black feminism and womanism, female
neo-soul artists engage in a variety of critiques that attract a diverse Black fan base
unique in a varied intersections of gender, class, and sexuality.
This study ’s contribution to cultural studies is through the expansion of rhetorical
inquiry into Black publics and counterpublics as well as opening discussion with fans. It

9
Neo-soul embraces all five forms of love as conceived by the ancient Greeks: (1) epithumia (deep
desire/lust); (2) eros (romantic/sexual love); (3) stroge (familial love); (4) phile (friendship/platonic love);
(5) apage (selfless/ unconditional love).

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accomplishes this by bring attention to an alternative gendered perspective within The
Black Public Sphere Collective (1995). As fan scholar Mark Duffett (2013b, 2013c)
concedes, popular music fandom scholarship has never been accorded a strong
disciplinary framework within which to place its audience work. He finds that research
has tended to focus on the text (musicology) or production and distribution (sociology).
This project examines the contingencies of genre development over time. It gathers both
text and production/distribution of the neo-soul genre while putting into context fan
readings about the authenticity, innovation, qualities and future of the genre.
xxx

Generally, fan studies focus on a variety of biological, social and cultural
categories, while race and ethnicity has remained an under-theorized lens through which
scholars have examined fandom and fan culture. In a special issue of Transformative
Works and Cultures, Sarah N. Gatson & Robin Anne Reid (2011) call for an inquiry into
the intersections of fandom with race and ethnicity that yielded intersections of fandom
and race primarily through Web 2.0 technologies. The absence of an extensive inquiry
into race is not without consequence. Greater attention should be paid accorded to
alternative fans groups whose “difference ” opens trajectory of emancipation. Though not
often explicitly stated, whiteness and fandom within the current paradigm of cultures
have a rather intertwined relationship. Mel Stanfill (2011) sees fandom as a failed non-
hertero-normative whiteness that serves to produce fandom as a racialized construct
against whiteness.
xxxi
My study demonstrates that this should not be the essential quality
of addressing fan experiences and contributions to critical cultural practices. Therefore,
the study opens a path to broaden the scope of the interrogation of race and its
intersections with fandom, outside of whiteness. Feminist and queer perspectives are

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useful in extending the field of fan studies to those represented as other; the addition of
race may intersect usefully with such work.
xxxii
Race, gender, and sexuality are spaces
where identity can be, and are, negotiated; and this absence of an engagement with race
as Karen Hellekson states in conversation with Henry Jenkins (2014), “[has] left a
vacuum in the field that skews perceptions of fans as comprising primarily middle-class
white girls and women (if media) or as middle-class white boys and men (if gaming or
comics). Nonwhite concerns are perceived as outliers. ” While fan studies experienced a
vital scholarly moment between 2006 and 2007 with Karen Hellekson and Kristina
Busse ’s anthology Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet: New
Essays (2006) and Jonathan Gray, Cornel Sandvoss and C. Lee Herrington ’s anthology
Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World (2007) – the former focusing
on the female fan writing community, expanding conceptions of gender within fandom
and the latter broadened the kinds of fandom studied through an engagement of global,
historical and a diversity of fandoms ranging from cult media, popular music, and news –
a watershed moment regarding the engagement of race and fandom still eludes the field.
Highlighted through Transformative Works and Cultures ’ special issue on race and
ethnicity in fandom (2011), and once again through Jenkins ’ conversation with Karen
Hellekson and Kristina Busse in 2014, this study extends these engagements, thereby
assuring that fans of color are not fixed in a doubly Othered binary (Jenkins, 2014). If a
fan is seen as Othered and non-white is an Other within the current fandom paradigm,
then this study on neo-soul and its Black women fan base debunks fans of color as a
doubled other. My modified narrative of fan studies and fandom moves Black women

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from outliers to founding members of counterpublics entrenched in ongoing struggles of
the Black public sphere. In addition to these primary voices, Black men, Latina women,
and several mixed raced women were interviewed alongside these women to expand our
understanding of racial identification ’s connections to fandom. What I have found
through studying fandom through the Black counterpublic of neo-soul is that fandom
becomes a site of discussion and contestation through the artists and works fans actively
engage. Through these works and the artists, neo-soul fans celebrate and critique,
oftentimes solidifying, constructing, and/or remodeling their own views on blackness and
womanhood, through the alternative social communities created around the music and
artist.
The fans that I engage with through neo-soul illustrate how Black fandom can be
both counter to white hegemony and also normative in everyday life. Fandom itself is not
infrequently linked to Black representation in US culture. Attentiveness to race can
transform fan studies because it destabilizes the assumption that fans actively select
outsider status. A fandom, like neo-soul “that is not a cult fandom can be considered
somewhat normative and this outsider status built into the early theorization of fandom
fails to address how sometimes social justice projects call on identity groups to become
fans as a political act” (Wanzo, 2015, p. 2). As Rebecca Wanzo (2015) acknowledges, a
theorization of women’s fandom in particular often engages in these women’s refusal of
“normative roles, which stands in contrast to Black identities in the United States, which
are already constructed as other to Western noramtivity” (p. 3). Therefore, neo-soul
fandom is a space where Black womanhood is normative and is not a space where fans
seek an outlet that is rejecting normativety per se. Rather, the genre is a space that

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performs some of the complexities of Black womanhood and it also normalizes their
often othered identity in spaces outside of neo-soul.
This troubling of otherness within fan studies might then become more visible
when scholars focus on particular identity groups. These identity questions appear when
examining neo-soul but likely extend more broadly. Following in Wanzo (2015) ’s
theorization, this study of “Black fandom makes the erasures, complexities, and
challenges of thinking about the relationship between normativity and otherness in fan
communities more visible ” (p. 3). Future studies should wrestle with this idea further.
For example, Aimee Meredith Cox (2015) in Shapeshifters, interrogates how young
Black women in a Detroit homeless shelter challenge and trouble stereotypes through
dance and poetry. Through these participatory acts that are linked to their fandom of the
art, these young Black women criticize their partial citizenship status. Thus, they
negotiate their relationships to poverty, sexism, and racism. The ways in which fans
generate imagined lives for themselves invite inquiry across the arts and lifeworld.
While engaging new perspectives in fan studies, this project also focuses on an
alternative gendered perspective within The Black Public Sphere Collective (1995) ’s
work. While this anthology includes music and performance in terms of building the
Black public sphere, the perspectives analyzed focus on masculine standpoints. Therefore
this work is advancing the collective ’s work and advocating for an expanded focus on an
alterative gender perspective and not a single artist but a whole genre in its development.
Similar to Gwendolyn Pough (2004) ’s Check It While I Wreck It: Black Womanhood, Hip
Hop Culture and the Public Sphere, and Daphne A. Brooks (2014) ’s article “Bring the

182
Pain: Post-Soul Memory, Neo-Soul Affect, and Lauryn Hill in the Black Public Sphere, ”
this work pushes Black public sphere work to wrestle with alternative gendered
perspectives that move away from masculinist perceptions and race men rhetoric.
xxxiii

Taking a cue from both Hazel Carby (2001) ’s Race Men and Erica Edwards (2013) ’s
Charisma and the Fictions of Black Leadership, this work identifies critique-oriented
intellectual and artist leadership of Black American thought, highlighting the genre neo-
soul as a potential avenue. As the Black public sphere continues to segment into
numerous public spheres, counterpublics, and enclaves, blackness fragments itself
alongside an array of intersectional viewpoints (class, sexuality, gender, geographic
location, ability, generation, etc.). My study illustrates how an analysis of an alternative
genre that moves popular culture away from a strictly masculinist Black point-of-view
works. Neo-soul invites the appreciation of a more nuanced and accurate understanding
of Black life in America and once the door is opened, new cultural spaces emerge where
difference becomes celebrated with greater inclusively. For example, Black Lives Matter
affirms Black queer and trans lives alongside disabled Black lives, undocumented Black
lives, and Black women in an attempt to center those Black lives and voices that have
often been marginalized within Black liberation movements. Thus, the contemporary
cultural moment unfolds with an even greater inclusion of Black women perspectives
who have always contributed to a Black public sphere.
This study also highlights how public culture contributes to the Black public
sphere, following the path of Baraka (1963), Edwards (2012), Neal (2002), Perry (2004),
Pough (2004), Ramsey (2003), Redmond (2014), Von Eschen (2006), and Ward (1998).
These scholars identify the importance of popular music to Black spaces and identity.

183
This project develops a method of rhetorical inquiry and narrows focus to appreciating
and analyzing the work and fan engagements with three artists. Music is one of the ways
Black women combat stereotypes through narrative storytelling within their lyrics and
their performances. The combination of rhetoric and fan studies in this inquiry outlines
horizons for a particular strategy of studies within the Black public sphere.
Limitations to this study include the breath of musical releases interrogated in the
preceding chapters. While landmark albums from Erykah Badu, Jill Scott and India.Arie
are analyzed, an analysis of Lauryn Hill ’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998),
Badu ’s Mama ’s Gun (2000) and Worldwide Underground (2003), Scott ’s Beautifully
Human: Words And Sounds Vol. 2 (2004) and The Light of the Sun (2011), would
strengthen the themes outlined throughout this project.
xxxiv
Additionally, this work does
not investigate the future possibilities and/or consequences for the genre. Future studies
should test the conclusions of this work amongst fans to suggest alternative futures for
neo-soul. Asking questions regarding the future of neo-soul amongst fans creates
dissentions, giving neo-soul artists a range of possibilities to engage.
The chief focus of the work has been emic taking up substance (virtual
experience) and style (virtual time) with self-expressed fan interviews. Etic study would
invite study of the external constraints influencing the genre. Thus, further inquiry
requires engagement with exogenous situational elements that impact shifts in the genre.
Such exogenous situational elements include: (1) changes within the music industry that
impact neo-soul artists and fandom, (2) prospects and problems of studying fan cultures
that live online, as well as (3) the genre ’s relation to the context and study of the social

184
construction of race. This emic genre inquiry also readies connections with etic studies
of black industry, fan studies, and race prepared by the work identified below.
The music industry is well-studied. Black music is a subject of growing interest.
These works include: Steve Knopper (2009) ’s Appetite For Self-Destruction: The
Spectacular Crash Of The Record Industry In The Digital Age, Dan Charnas (2011) ’s The
Big Payback: The History Of The Business of Hip-Hop, Simon Napier-Bell (2014) ’s Ta-
Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay: The Dodgy Business Of Popular Music, Gareth Murphy (2014) ’s
Cowboys & Indies: The Epic History Of The Record Industry, and John Seabrook
(2015) ’s The Song Machine: Inside The Hit Factory. These works offer insights into the
political and economic aspects of the industry that shape how the music is created,
marketed, received, and consumed. While this project focuses on the artists, their music,
and the fans ’ who participate in this counterpublic sphere, these authors offer an
additional avenue for analysis into the business impacts on the genre.
The structure of the industry is one thing. The digital participatory communities
of fandom in various mediated configurations is quite another. Fan life is identified by
Henry Jenkins (2008) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide; Frank
Rose (2012) The Art of Immersion: How the Digital Generation Is Remaking Hollywood:
Madison Avenue, and the Way We Tell Stories, Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford, and Joshua
Green (2013) ’s Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture
as well as Henry Jenkins, Muzuko Ito, and danah boyd (2015) ’s Participatory Culture in
a Networked Era: A Conversation on Youth, Learning, Commerce, and Politics. These
sources theorize online network societies and the resulting participatory cultures

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(Facebook, message boards, game clans, Twitter). Such cultures are characterized by fan
creative works in new forms such as digital sampling, fan video-making, fan fiction. The
influence of fandom at large is useful in coming to terms with contexts in tracking the
emergent relation of audiences and the arts. Neo-soul ’s own challenges should be studied
as contributing to changing and being changed by on-line fandom.
Racial identification is a key component of neo-soul. Fans continually link neo-
soul music to Black identities. Chapter four briefly examines how neo-soul expands our
understanding of the performance of blackness. I reference John L. Jackson (2005) ’s Real
Black: Adventures in Racial Sincerity. However, the complexities of race as a societal
construct are beyond the scope of my emic critique. The tension between constructions of
race and a genre intrinsically linked to blackness will continue to influence this genre and
its fans who perform a counterpublic sphere, in the large developing context of social
constructions of race and the Black public sphere. Such inquiries should consult Michael
Omni & Howard Winant (1994) ’s Racial Formation in the United States, E. Patrick
Johnson (2003) ’s Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity,
Jayna Brown (2008) ’s Babylon girls: Black women performers and the shaping of the
modern, Richard D. Alba ’s (2009) Blurring the Color Line: The New Chance for a More
Integrated America, Miles White (2011) ’s From Jim Crow to Jay-Z: Race, Rap, and the
Performance of Masculinity, the edited collection Racial Formation in the Twenty-First
Century (2012) by Daniel Martinez HoSang, Oneka LaBennett, & Laura Pulido, as well
as Aimee Meredith Cox (2015) ’s Shapeshifters: Black Girls and the Choreography of

186
Citizenship. These works examine the tension between race as a socially constructed
identity and the individuals and cultures that form around them.
Conclusion
As Vibe Magazine (2002) argued, “By definition, neo-soul is a paradox. “Neo”
means new. Soul is timeless. All the neo-soul artists, in various ways, perform balancing
acts, exploring classic soul idioms while injecting a living, breathing presence into time-
tested formulas. They humanize R&B, which has often been reduced to a factory-
perfected product. Like sushi, neo-soul is fresh enough to be served raw” (Ehrlich, p. 72).
This raw music, as this project has highlighted, has focused on Black-women centered
narratives. While this project did not analyze in depth neo-soul women’s critiques about
the hardships faced by Black men, it is important to reference that these women engaged
in the consequence of their brethren’s own intersectionalities. From Erykah Badu’s
“Other Side of the Game,” Jill Scott’s “Brotha” and “Rasool,” Angie Stone’s “Brotha,” to
Marsha Ambrosius’s “Far Away,” these songs and others offer a different take on
blackness that exposes the plight of the Black man through the eyes of the women that
love them. It is also important to note that throughout my interviews, several male neo-
soul artists names came up in conversation. Neo-soul is not a strictly Black woman genre,
as D’Angelo, Maxwell, Musiq Soulchild, Rahsaan Patterson, Anthony Hamilton, Donnie,
Raheem DeVaughn, Raphael Saadiq, Van Hunt, Bilal, Dwele, Anthony David, Martin
Luther, Jesse Boykins III, Cody Chestnutt, and many others who also occupy this musical
space with the numerous Black women, has demonstrated. Neo-soul I would argue is a
genre where Black women’s voices are equally, if not more so, at the center of the genre
than its commercial rap counterpart.

187
Through this unique position, neo-soul women offer their critiques of central
issues impacting hip-hop women’s lives as neo-soul offers alternatives to hip-hop
culture’s hyper masculine, space. These Black female artists such as Erykah Badu, Jill
Scott, India.Arie, Angie Stone, Lauryn Hill, Les Nubian, Floetry, Amel Larrieux, Conya
Doss, Avery Sunshine, Ledisi, Georgia Anne Muldrow, N’dambi, Jazmine Sullivan,
Marsha Ambrosius, Estelle, Goapele, Janelle Monae, Chrisette Michele, Nneka, Lianne
La Havas, and more have “found ways to deal with these issues [within hip-hop of the
controlling image of the super-strong Black woman or the video vixen] within the larger
public sphere and the counter public sphere of hip hop [aka neo-soul] by bringing wreck
to stereotyped images through their continued use of expressive culture” (Pough, 2004, p.
74). This expressive culture includes both neo-soul artists as well as their fans, who
together create a counterpublic sphere where Black women’s voices are central and their
cultural works (fandom, music, music videos, concert performances) appreciated. This
counterpublic genre therefore critiques patriarchal narratives and roles of mainstream
Black popular culture (i.e. hip-hop), resists hegemonic constructions of sexuality and
gender (i.e. feminism), and reinvents Black women’s narrative rationality; providing
audiences with relevant equipment for living their everyday lives.
This investigation into the counterpublic sphere of neo-soul is designed to begin
more conversations on these innovative Black women and their fans. While the focus of
neo-soul in this project was on Black women and the genre ’s predominantly Black female
fan base, it is important to acknowledge that neo-soul and its messages attract a wide
array of fans as I myself acknowledge my fandom alongside numerous non-Black
cisgender heterosexual women who enjoy the messages and music of neo-soul. It is my

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hope that this project spurs other investigations into neo-soul music, whether it is an
examination of particular artists or specific time periods within the movement. However,
it is obvious from this study, that this counterpublic musical genre is an understudied
movement that is still active and engaged with almost twenty years after its inception. At
the beginning of this project, I myself was extremely invested in the term neo-soul, but
through this research, I am less invested in the name of the genre and musical movement,
but rather on the impact the genre has had and can have on current and future fans.
Whether one calls it soul music, progressive soul, nu-soul, or neo-soul, this genre offers a
place for voices at the margins to be heard and embraces unique and different
perspectives that are vital in Black liberation struggles including #BlackLivesMatter and
#BlackGirlsMagic movements.

i
For more on the Philadelphia sound, see John A. Jackson’s (2004) A House on Fire: The Rise and Fall of
Philadelphia Soul and Bruce A. Hawes’s (2013) Growing Up In The Sound of Philadelphia.
ii
See Pough (2004) for more information regarding the hip-hop public sphere. Rose (1994) and The Black
Public Sphere Collective (1995) offer foundational analyses into the Black public sphere and the hip-hop
public sphere.
iii
Engaging neo-soul through the sonic is intended to align this study with a sound study perspective that
elevates listening as a critical engagement, rather than as a secondary to visual. Sound therefore is an object
of critical communication inquiry in its own right. For more on the sonic see “Audibile Citizenship and
Audiomobility: Race, Technology, and CB Radio” by Art M. Blake (2012), “Abolishionism’s Resonant
Bodies: The Realization of African American Performance” by “Alex W. Black (2012), “Marian Anderson
abd “Sonic Blackness” in American Opera” by Nina Sun Eidsheim (2012), “Soul Vibrations: Black Music
and Black Freedom in Soud and Space” by Gayle Wald (2012) and “Back Door Man: Howlin’ Wolf and
the Sound of Jim Crow” by Eric Lott (2012).
iv
Neo-soul is a mixed musical genre because it incorporates lyrical, visual, and musical score elements
from traditional soul music as well as rap. Neo-soul mixes these sonic elements in a way that is distinct
from both rap and soul as it blurs the lines between analog and digital technologies. Through this mixing,
neo-soul becomes “neo,” and reshapes Black popular culture and the public sphere.
v
See Jeff Chang’s (2005) Can’t stop won’t stop: A history of the hip-hop generation, Dyson (1995, 2001),
hooks (1994), Neal (2002), Perry (2004), Pough (2003, 2004), Rose (1994), Ward (1998), and Werner
(2006) for more on Black performers in hip-hop and rhythm-and-blues.
vi
While the style and delivery focus on accessibility, the invention, arrangement, and organization of the
lyrics are complex and nuanced. Thus, this kind of incongruence can be viewed as a critical statement of
what it means for these rhetors to be who they are at these historical moments.
vii
As Fraser (1990) underscores, counterpublics “contested the exclusionary norms of the bourgeois public,
elaborating alternative styles of political behavior and alternative norms of public speech” (p. 61). Building
on Fraser’s (1990) reformulation of the public sphere as consisting of a dominant public sphere and
subaltern counterpublics, Squires (2002) argues that the term ‘counterpublic’ is too broad of a concept and

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needs to be critically analyzed further, revealing that there exist multiple identities, both shared and
different. Therefore, within the context of the Black public sphere, you see multiple spheres made up of
members of the same affinity group thus differ in other ways (class, gender, sexuality, political ideology,
access, etc) that have split the more singular Black public sphere of the 50s and 60s. The crucial question
and challenge then is what activities are these groups engaged in and what consensus exists among them?
In Squires’ (2006) model, marginalized public spheres (a term she uses instead of counterpublic) may
utilize three different responses to dominant social pressures, legal restrictions and other challenges from
dominant publics and the state: (1) counterpublic, (2) satellite, and (3) enclave.
For Squires (2002), a counterpublic is signified by increased public communication between the marginal
and dominant public spheres (the marginal group travels outside of enclaves, bringing the hidden transcript
to dominant publics). It might be formed in response to a decrease in oppression or an increase in resources
such as greater independent media resources and distribution channels, which means more exposure and
participation. Though the counterpublic response may seem like the best response, depending on the time,
it may not always be prudent. A counterpublic is also susceptible to being monopolized by the dominant
public or unintentionally be affected or undermined by its interactions with larger publics. Meanwhile,
satellite publics are made up of collectives that desire to maintain a solid group identity and build
independent institutions outside of the larger public, and do not desire discourse with the larger public.
When their interests converge with others though, they may enter wider debates. Finally, a public might
enclave itself (or be forced into enclaves) by hiding counterhegemonic ideas and strategies in order to
survive or avoid sanctions, while at the same time internally producing lively debate. This relies on the
maintenance of safe spaces, hidden communications and group memory. “Without the enclave, there is no
longer a “safe space” to develop and discuss ideas without interference from outsiders whose interests may
stifle tactical innovation” and within the Black rhetorical tradition, these enclaves are often found what
Nunley (2007, 2011) defines as hush harbors (Squires, 2002, p. 464).
viii
Individuals interviewed for this research project were Kyera Singleton, Dania Holder, Tarresha
Poindexter, Nelly Sargent, Terron Austin, Pi-Isis Ankrah, Janderie Gutierrez, Lisbel Lora, Midori
McSwain, Marsha Ambrosius, Janae Green, Jade Chenise, Tarica June, Mikki Shepard, Evita Castine,
Sudhey Taveras, Faithe Day, Simone Hill, Lara Adecola, Haydée Souffrant, Shani Syphrett, Darien Dean,
Anthony Maddox, Anasa Troutman, Miles Williams, Durand Bernarr, Kia Bennett, Dedry Jones,
Christopher Arnette, and Will Dawson. The majority of the interviews (29/30) occurred between February
2015 and May 2015, while Kyera Singleton’s interview occurred on October 17, 2013.
ix
Critics also determine the ethics of the story, which identifies the values embedded in the narrative, this
often relates to equipment for living and the coherence of the narrative. Regarding coherence, critics
understand the concept through structural coherence (how does the story compare to others with a similar
theme?), material coherence (how probable is the story to the receiver?), and characterological coherence
(can we count on the character(s) to act in a reliable manner?).
x
Sventlana Boym (2001) distinguishes between two forms of nostalgia operating within contemporary
society-- labeling them as restorative and reflective. Restorative nostalgia attempts a “transhistorical
reconstruction of the lost home,” while reflective delays and thrives on the ‘reconstruction of the lost home’
while dwelling “on the ambivalances of human longing and belonging and does not shy away from the
contradictions of modernity” (xviii). Restorative nostalgia then stresses a return to home while reflective
nostalgia focuses on the longing itself. These two forms of nostalgia do not operate within a binary and the
music videos for neo-soul engage both aspects of Sventlana’s nostalgia, sometimes at the same time.
Badu’s “Next Lifetime” engages both restorative and reflective nostalgia, as she desires to return to Africa
as well as to reflect on a new flexibility and “mediation on history and the passage of time” (Boym, 2007,
p. 9). As Boym (2007) outlines “Reflective nostalgia is concerned with historical and individual time, with
the irrevocability of the past and human finitude. Re-flection means new flexibility, not the reestablishment
of stasis. The focus here is not on the recovery of what is perceived to be an absolute truth, but on the
meditation on history and the passage of time” (p. 9). Therefore, through these music videos, neo-soul
artists operate within nostalgia through reflective and restorative-- sometimes engaging both aspects within
their music video imagery. For more on Nostalgia, see Boym’s The Future of Nostalgia (2001) as well as
her 2007 article “Nostalgia and Its Discontents”.
xi
African American Hush Harbors offer a sort of enclave for Blacks; hush harbors are necessary “to the
maintenance, circulation, and affirmation of African American knowledge” that is often barred from the

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public sphere (Nunley, 2011, p.24). Hush harbors find roots from enslaved African and African Americans
who used the term to refer geographically to where Blacks could speak frankly in Black spaces in front of
Black audiences. These hush harbors or enclaves are quasi-public spaces that “provide safe spaces where
Black folks affirm, share, and negotiate African American epistemologies and resist and subvert hegemonic
Whiteness” and exist in such places as beauty shops, cookouts, barbershops, church, Black fraternities and
sororities as well as porches (Nunley, 2007, p. 222). Hush harbors are functional because they are Black
spaces, a disruptive discursive space, a space of radical Blackness where hegemonic discourse is not
unproblematically reinscribed. However, “[s]ince racialized subjects are constitutive of and by the
discourses of the dominant culture, traces of hegemonic thinking may take up residence in hush harbor
spaces” (Nunley, 2007, p. 235). These enclaves though, can “serve as a key to replenishing a hollowed-out
public sphere where” where fewer working-class and poor individuals and communities participate in
national elections (Nunley, 2007, p. 240). Since civility tends to privilege the politics and values of those
constructing and benefiting from the dominant discourse and “race is based on exclusion,” these enclaves
offer space for creating and asserting racial identities that can then enter into larger, more public spheres
and challenge the hegemonic assumptions inherent in larger public spheres (Nunley, 2007, p. 225). Like
hidden transcripts that offer subversive discourse that is concealed from dominant gazes, hush harbors
create and circulate alternative knowledge, values and commonplaces and become productive, generative
and resistant spaces within discourse formation. Formal institutions such as the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), National Colored Woman’s Association, Black Panthers, and
SCLC (Southern Christian leadership Conference) all emerged from hidden Black public spheres aka hush
harbors and much like their hush harbor pasts, authorize the unofficial, underground and under the radar
rhetoric and epistemologies publicly. “Too often [though] African American and other “subaltern” rhetors
gain legitimacy in the public sphere through domesticating their rhetoric into the bounds of acceptable
debate by appealing to notions of civility and tolerance” and while some formal institutions and Black
rhetors have domesticated their rhetoric, neo-soul artists have resisted this impulse and have found a
balance between hush harbor rhetoric and domesticated rhetoric of the public sphere (Nunley, 2007, p.
231).
xii
See Gerard A. Hauser and Erin Daina McClellan’s (2009) “Vernacular Rhetoric and Social Movements:
Performances of Resistance in the Rhetoric of the Everyday” in Active Voices: Composing a Rhetoric of
Social Movements and Jenny C. Mann’s (2012) Outlaw Rhetoric: Figuring Vernacular Eloquence in
Shakespeare's England for more on outlaw and vernacular rhetorics from a critical rhetorical perspective.
xiii
Hip-hop feminists seek to go beyond the misogynistic visuals and lyrics that hip-hop provides to look at
this culture and music as a space for young Black women to express their racial, sexual and gendered
identities while critiquing the sexism, homophobia, and racism found within the culture. For more on Hip-
hop feminism refer to Ayana Byrd (2004)’s “Claiming Jezebel: Black Female Subjectivity and Sexual
Expression in Hip-Hop” In The Fire This Time: Young Activists and the New Feminism, Gwendolyn Pough
(2003)’s “Do the Ladies Run This...?: Some Thoughts on Hip-Hop Feminism” In Catching a Wave:
Reclaiming Feminism for the 21stCentury , Pough (2004)’s Check It While I Wreck It: Black Womanhood,
Hip-Hop Culture, and the Public Sphere, Whitney A. Peoples (2008)’s ““Under Construction”: Identifying
Foundations of Hip-Hop Feminism and Exploring Bridges between Black Second-Wave and Hip-Hop
Feminisms” in Meridians, Jennifer C. Nash (2011)’s “Practicing Love: Black Feminism, Love-Politics, and
Post-Intersectionality” in Meridians, Aisha Durham, Brittney C. Cooper & Susana M. Morris (2013)’s
“The Stage Hip-Hop Feminism Built: A New Directions Essay” in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture &
Society, the edited hip-hop feminism reader Wish to Live: The Hip-hop Feminism Pedagogy Reader (2012)
by Ruth Nicole Brown and Chamara Jewel Kwakye, as well as Aisha S. Durham (2014)’s Home with Hip
Hop Feminism: Performances in Communication and Culture.
xiv
See Collins (1990), Higginbotham (1993), Nagel (2003), and White (2001) for more on politics of
respectability.
xv
For more information regarding controlling images refer to Collins (1990), hooks (1981), Nagel (2003),
Pough (2004), and White (2001).
xvi
Stigma operates rhetorically as a self-rationalizing strategy of bigotry. It suffocates expression by
constraining performance to models that are either conventional or conventionalized by popular culture.
Counter-strategies to undermine bigotry can be either or both confrontational and immediate or gradual and
emergent. The complexities of Black womanhood became the articulation of difference, a challenge built
into artists who identified with neo-soul as a movement.

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xvii
Daphne Brooks’s (2006) Bodies in dissent: Spectacular performances of race and freedom: 1850-1910
and Jayna Brown’s (2008) Babylon girls: Black women performers and the shaping of the modern trace
how Black female bodies have been historically explored through music and other entertainment mediums.
xviii
In her article, “Policing the Black Womanʼs Body in an Urban Context,” Hazel Carby (1992) illustrates
how Black women who migrated to the North from the South were policed by Black elites and white
institutions for fear that their innate low moral fiber. For more on the policing of the race and
representational politics, see Carby (1998), Cohen (2004), Collins (1990), and White (2001).
xix
There is one strong public that is defined by citizenship. There are many public cultures that struggle to
dismantle the social structures that are results of bigotry, stigma, and predatory self-interest.
Multiculturalism without citizenship is an important vector, which neo-soul takes up.
xx
Regarding art and emancipation, Jacques Rancière (2010) explores this concept through dissensus.
Dissensus is not articulated disagreement nor is it unarticulated antagonism, rather dissensus liberates
through putting difference out there, in pleasurable ways that invites audiences to pause, and appreciate
who they are and what they could become. Through neo-soul, one could argue that it therefore emancipates
through dissensus, offering the self different sonic, lyrical, and visual cues from a narrow, less attractive
sets of representations. For more on art and emancipation see Rancière’s Dissensus: On Politics and
Aesthetic (2010)
xxi
Hill is an important figure as well in neo-soul and much has been written about her in the popular as
well as academic press. For more information regarding Hill and the public sphere refer to Celnisha L.
Dangerfield (2002)’s article “Lauryn Hill as Lyricist and Womanist” as well as Daphne A. Brooks (2014)’s
article “Bring the Pain: Post-Soul Memory, Neo-Soul Affect, and Lauryn Hill in the Black Public Sphere.”
xxii
Cunningham offers a different take on the neo-soul genre eventually decided that it is just an
evolvement of traditional soul music. It’s a great read for people looking for more on neo-soul as there is a
dearth of scholarly accounts on the genre. While I disagree with his conclusions, as Cunningham omits hip-
hop’s substantial influence on neo-soul, it is a solid piece of scholarship that gives a different take on the
neo-soul phenomena.
xxiii
Craig Werner uses excerpts from Ralph Ellison’s Shadow and Act to help illuminate the definitions of
jazz and blues. The original excerpts from Ellison’s work that were used read as follows. “The blues is an
impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one’s aching consciousness,
to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it, not by the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from it
a near-tragic, near-cosmic lyricism. As a form the blues is an autobiographical chronicle of personal
catastrophe expressed lyrically” (78-79). “True jazz is an art of individual assertion within and against the
group. Each true jazz moment (as distinct from the uninspired commercial performance) springs from a
contest in which each artist challenges all the rest; each solo flight, or improvisation, represents (like the
successive canvases of a painter) a definition of his identity; as individual, as member of the collective and
as a link in the chain of tradition” (234).
xxiv
For the purposes of this project I will define the mainstream as “the middle class majority that
consumes entertainment in staggering quantities and never strays far from the middle political spectrum”
(Wahl 99). Greg Wahl conceptualizes that hip-hop artists “fail to fulfill their revolutionary potential at the
moment in their careers at which increasing commercial success allows them access to ‘the mainstream’”
(99). Greg also notes that there are a few exceptions to this rule such as NWA (Niggaz With Attitude),
whose second album 1988’s “Straight Outta Compton” catapulted them into the mainstream with their
controversial song “Fuck tha Police”. Greg notes that NWA were “straight from the underground” as “Fuck
tha Police” stated and that “the underground was at the time crucial in the process of reaching a select
audience of teenagers and college students who are historically some of the most loyal fans” (Wahl 100).
Since NWA continued with their message and did not care whether they maintained their mainstream
status, they “could not be accused of the worst sin for other underground and Black artists, ‘selling out’ or
‘crossing over’; rather they had the luxury of the moral high ground and could say they had merely called
attention to a pre-existing racist suppression of free speech” (Wahl 101)
xxv
For more on rap’s roots see Tricia Rose’s (1994) Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in
Contemporary America.
xxvi
Unique to Western Africa, the griot has referred historians and storytellers. They are genealogists,
historians, spokespeople, ambassadors, musicians, teachers, warriors, interpreters, praise-singers, masters

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of ceremonies, advisors, and more. Not every griot does all of these things, but these are all examples of
functions the griot profession embodies.
xxvii
Sellnow (1996) and Sellnow & Sellnow’s (2001) illusion of life rhetorical perspective interpreted
music through both a musical and lyrical context offering an ‘illusion of life’ rhetorical model that analyzes
music as communication through the interaction between lyrics (virtual experience) and musical score
(virtual time). Understanding musical score as intensity/release patterns, Sellnow & Sellnow (2001) outline
how these intensity release patterns can compliment or diverge from the lyrical composition. Rhythmic
and harmonic structures was examined noting, that a metric order is calming and representative of a release
rather than intensity, whereas a song that “returns to the home chord often, is more symbolic of release than
one that seems to avoid returning to the home chord” (Sellnow & Sellnow, 2001, p. 405). Melodic structure
(ascending melodic lines associated with intensity; descending melodic lines associated with release), the
duration of notes within the musical score (longer-held notes might symbolize release when compared to
shorter notes), instrumentation (music that uses a great variety of instruments such as brass, percussion, and
electric guitar = Intensity; strings, woodwinds, saxophone, acoustic guitar i.e. mellow sounds = release) and
phrasing (staccato = intensity; legato = release; crescendos and accelerates = intensity; diminuendos and
ritardandos = release) are all additional musical components that require interpretation in addition to the
textual analysis of the lyrical composition (Sellnow 1996; Sellnow & Sellnow, 2001). While Sellnow
(1996) and Sellnow & Sellnow (2001) reveal a non-musicality intense phase of analysis to interpret the
musical score (virtual time), an analysis of lyrics (virtual experience) is also revealed through the illusion of
life rhetorical perspective. Describing two types of lyrics, dramatic and poetic, Sellnow & Sellnow (2001)
reveal how virtual experience can be analyzed. Virtual experiences that are found to illuminate the poetic
illusion look backwards and towards the past and oftentimes connect to the inner self (Sellnow & Sellnow,
2001). Meanwhile, dramatic illusion lyrics are forward thinking, engage with uncertainty, a sense of
suspense, and tension of seeking a resolution (Sellnow & Sellnow, 2001). In addition to the virtual time
illusions (poetic and dramatic), a further level of analysis within the comic illusion or tragic illusion are
also analyzed by Sellnow & Sellnow (2001). Comic illusions for Sellnow & Sellnow (2001) are optimistic
lyrics that have the protagonist overcoming. Tragic lyrics are pessimistic and depict the protagonist of the
song coping with fate (Sellnow & Sellnow, 2001). Through this two-tiered analysis of lyrics, Sellnow &
Sellnow (2001) reveal how virtual experience (lyrics) can align to create congruent or incongruent
messages with the virtual time (musical score). Congruent messages for Sellnow & Sellnow (2001) occur
when the virtual time and virtual experience are aligned. With regard to the intensity of virtual time, a
dramatic and comic virtual experience would foster the most congruent message as would a release virtual
time, coupled with a poetic and tragic virtual experience (Sellnow & Sellnow, 2001). Inversely,
incongruent messages would be caused when the congruent messages outlined above are not aligned with
the virtual time and virtual experience (Sellnow & Sellnow, 2001). These incongruent messages tend to
alter the meaning one would understand due to the misalignment of either the lyrics to the music or vice-
versa (Sellnow & Sellnow, 2001).
xxviii
African American Hush Harbors offer a sort of enclave for Blacks; hush harbors are necessary “to the
maintenance, circulation, and affirmation of African American knowledge” that is often barred from the
public sphere (Nunley, 2011, p.24). Hush harbors find roots from enslaved African and African Americans
who used the term to refer geographically to where Blacks could speak frankly in Black spaces in front of
Black audiences.
xxix
Antonio Gramsci used the term hegemony to denote the predominance of one social class over others.
Hegemony represents not only political and economic control, but also the ability of the dominant class to
project its own way of seeing the world so that those who are subordinated by it accept it as “common
sense” and “natural.” For more on hegemony see Gramsci’s (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks.
For more on cultural performance, see E. Patrick Johnson’s (2003) Appropriating Blackness: Performance
and the politics of authenticity, Dwight L. Conquergood’s (2013) Cultural struggles: performance,
ethnography, praxis and Turner (1983).
xxx
Duffett points out some current gaps in the study of popular music fandom arguing that too often music
scholars explore the text and its producers instead of examining fractions of its audience. Pointing out
children’s novelty records, empathetic education, and the waning of music fandoms as potential areas of
inquiry, Duffett (2013c) concludes that the “relative blindness to [fandoms] beginnings, endings, and
history is endemic to the field” and needs to be further explored in addition to the outlined areas” (p. 303).

193

This study then takes up Duffett’s inquiry through neo-soul attempting to analyze the genre’s humble
beginnings through its current iteration.
xxxi
His fandom exemplars revealed a failed whiteness in terms of questionable masculinity, insufficiently
manly (being overweight or un-athletic), not having a successful career, viewed as childish, as well as
hailing at heterosexuality (unfamiliar with information pertaining to sex; being gay) still steep fandom
within the lens of whiteness but a whiteness that is performed counter to its societal constructs.
xxxii
There are several key works throughout fandom studies that engage the intersection of gender and
sexuality that have laid a foundation of inclusion within fan studies. Refer to Constance Penley (1991)’s
"Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Study of Popular Culture" in Lawrence Grosberg, Cary Nelson, and
Paula A. Treichler (eds.) Cultural Studies, Janice Radway (1984)’s Reading the Romance: Women,
Patriarchy and Popular Literature, Richard Dyer (1986)’s “Judy Garland and Gay Men” in Heavenly
Bodies: Film Stars and Society, Henry Jenkins’ (2006) “Out of the Closet and Into the Universe: Queers
and Star Trek,” from Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers, and Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse (eds.) Fan
Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet (2006) amongst others. These works set a base for
the expansion of fandom from a heteronormative white patriarchal space to include heterosexual white
women and queer white men and women in the narratives of fan studies. While Jacqueline Bobo (1995)
offers an intervention within fan studies through Black Women as Cultural Readers, focused on Black
women’s responses to the watching both The Color Purple and Daughters of the Dust, her gap-filling
scholarship and call for more studies on Black women fandom have gone relatively unnoticed currently
within fan studies. Therefore, this project continues in the legacy of Bobo’s and other works outside of fan
studies such as Hazel Carby (1998)’s book chapter “It jus be's dat way sometimes: The sexual politics of
women's blues,” Brian Ward (1998)’s Just my soul responding: Rhythm and blues, Shana L. Redmond
(2011)’s article “This Safer Space: Janelle Monáe's “Cold War””, and as Daphne A. Brooks (2014)’s article
“Bring the Pain: Post-Soul Memory, Neo-Soul Affect, and Lauryn Hill in the Black Public Sphere” to
highlight the narratives of fandom that exist outside of whiteness.
xxxiii
In Hazel Carby ’s (2001) Race Men, Carby explores different cultural representations of various black
masculinities at different historical moments and in different media (music, photography, film, etc.)
illuminating that through different mediums, masculinity is constructed and reconstructed. Carby “considers
the cultural and political complexity of particular inscriptions, performances, and enactments of black
masculinity on a variety of stage. Each stage is deliberately bounded and limited in its construction ” (2).
Through sketching the limits and possibilities of masculinity, Carby searches for alternative forms of Black
masculinity as the intellectual and artist leadership of black American should not fall solely to the race
men. In addition, noted scholar Erica Edwards (2012) in Charisma and the Fictions of Black Leadership
talks about how charisma becomes a defining factor that allows men to be at the forefront of movements
that minimize the work of women of color activists. Edwards ’s introductory example of neo-soul artist
Erykah Badu calls attention to Black women ’s role in what Edwards coins the ‘charismatic scenario ’ “a
cosmology, mythology, and performative technology for African American mass mobilization that has
structured public desire for black political leadership" (ix). Through Badu ’s presence at the Millions More
March and her subsequent actions, this work builds on Edwards ’ in hopes of further connecting neo-soul
within the Black public sphere as a genre linked to the challenge of charismatic scenarios.
xxxiv
While I transcribed lyrics to all the albums released from Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Jill Scott,
India.Arie, Ledisi, and Marsha Ambrosius, I opted to focus on Baduizm (1997), Who is Jill Scott (2000),
Acoustic Soul (2001), The Real Thing (2007), and New Amerykah Part One (2008) due to their commercial
impacts, frequency that each release was referenced throughout my interview process, as well as the sonic
and lyrical moves that these albums represented throughout the neo-soul movement. Moreover, neo-soul
includes prolific Black male artists whose works should be examined in a similar way that this study
investigates the releases of Scott, Badu, and Arie.

194

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Asset Metadata

Creator Shepard, Marcus C. (author)

Core Title For whom is neo-soul?: Black women and rhetorical invention in the public sphere

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Communication

Publication Date 04/14/2018

Defense Date 03/07/2016

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Black public sphere,music,neo-soul,OAI-PMH Harvest,race,rhetoric

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Goodnight, G. Thomas (committee chair), Jenkins, Henry (committee member), Lake, Randall (committee member), Redmond, Shana L. (committee member), Warren, Naomi (committee member)

Creator Email marcus.shepard@gmail.com,mcshepar@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c40-228028

Unique identifier UC11278512

Identifier etd-ShepardMar-4243.pdf (filename),usctheses-c40-228028 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-ShepardMar-4243.pdf

Dmrecord 228028

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Shepard, Marcus C.

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA