Hip-hop soul

[1] The genre was most popular during the mid and late 1990s[1] with artists such as Mary J. Blige (known as the "Queen of Hip-Hop Soul"), Jodeci, Faith Evans, TLC, and R.

[1] Hip hop soul evolved directly from new jack swing, a form of contemporary R&B popularized by artists and producers such as Teddy Riley and his group Guy, Keith Sweat, and Bobby Brown.

[1][3] New jack swing had incorporated elements of hip-hop music—primarily hip-hop-inspired drum tracks and rapped verses[1]—into contemporary R&B music also heavily inspired by the work of Prince.

[3] Hip hop soul shifted from new jack swing's reliance on synth-heavy production and took the hip-hop/R&B synthesis further by having R&B singers sing directly over the types of sample-heavy backing tracks typically found in contemporary hip-hop recordings like boom bap.

[8] Similarly, Diary of a Mad Band (1993), the second album from another Uptown act, Jodeci, featured the four-man male vocal group moving away from its new jack swing origins into hip hop soul recordings driven more by hip-hop rhythms than melodies.

[3] Several newer artists continued to perform in the hip hop soul subgenre in its original form from the 2000s forward, among them John Legend, Anthony Hamilton, and Keyshia Cole.