Afrofuturism and post-soul possibility in black popular music

African American Review, Winter, 2007 by Marlo David

Neo-soul is dead. -Erykah Badu, Worldwide Underground

For Badu to declare the demise of a young musical genre seems not only premature, but also self-indulgent. Her claim hardly seems warranted considering that music journalists, arguably, cite the release of D'Angelo's Brown Sugar, debuting in 1996, as the beginning of neo-soul as a genre. Regardless, even if one were to locate its inception earlier, perhaps with the emergence of the Oakland (California) trio ToniToneTony in the late 1980s, neo-soul performativity emanates out of the fledgling post-black, post Civil Rights moment in US culture. While those same music journalists attempted to name this emerging field of sonic expression--other names include "alternative" or "progressive soul," "rare groove," "real R&B," or "retronuevo"--D'Angelo and other musicians resisted the naming (Ratliff 40, George 186). From the outset, then, the refusal of classification--the postmodern rejection of definition--distinguishes neo-soul identity. Put another way, neo-soul resists a strictly aural reading; it is both a style of music and a self-conscious site of identity production.

With that in mind, Badu's declamation that "neo-soul is dead" indulges her neo-soul desire for self-definition and participates in a careful rearticulation of her personal philosophy, Baduizm. Her gesture recalls a similar move by the "alternative" hip-hop trio De La Soul. After the 1989 success of their debut album 3 Feet High and Rising, De La Soul returned in 1991 with their sophomore effort De La Soul is Dead, an edgier rejection of their "hippie" rap image. (3) Literally, the title of their second album translates into "'of the soul' is dead," which bears an important similarity to the phrase "neo-soul is dead," Badu's pronouncement on the cover of her 2004 release Worldwide Underground. Both comments conceal the respective artists' true intent; their creation of soulful music maintains sonic significance in both cases. However, by proclaiming the death of a musical movement that clearly continues to shape their cultural production, Badu and De La Soul signify on the phenomenon of categorization and commodification of black music and style. Paul Gilroy explains this antagonism toward confining labels:

   The fragmentation and subdivision of black music into an ever
   increasing proliferation of styles and genres which makes a
   nonsense of this polar opposition between progress and dilution has
   also contributed to a situation in which authenticity emerges among
   the music makers as a highly charged and bitterly contested issue.
   (96)

Genre labels facilitate increasing market consumption of stratified music types and financially support music corporations, radio conglomerates, and consumers that look for packaged products targeted to specific demographics. (4) Neo-soul is not dead. In fact, it is thriving, but precisely because black artists such as Badu work to liberate themselves from genre labels, assert their individual subjectivities, and complicate what it means to be black and to make black music.