A commercial success, Sons of Soul charted for 43 weeks on the Billboard 200 and earned a double platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

"[5] He also explained the album's title as a declaration of them being descendants of those artists, "not in a grandiose sense, but from the standpoint that we really are the musical offspring of all that's come before us ... paying homage to our past, but creating in a contemporary environment.

[9][10] Raphael and D'wayne came up with ideas for songs by playing guitar and a drum machine, and working them into compositions with Riley and Carl Wheeler, an unofficial member and in-studio keyboardist for the group.

[11] Jaded with their lifestyles in California and the various people frequenting the studios,[2] the group moved the sessions to Caribbean Sound Basin in Maraval, a suburb of Port of Spain, Trinidad.

[3] They often dimmed the lights, burned incense, and drank wine to set the mood when recording, which D'wayne explained in Musician, "We try to make it real calm and mellow.

[15] They enlisted Trinidadian dancehall artist General Grant, a regular at Caribbean Sound Basin,[14] to perform a ragga rap on "What Goes Around Comes Around" and "Dance Hall",[3][9] songs they developed in Trinidad.

[17] They utilized both vintage and contemporary recording gear in the album's production, including a Hammond B-3, Clavinet, ARP String Ensemble, and Korg and Roland synthesizers.

[18] He cited the group's fusion of hip hop production and live instrumentation for Sons of Soul as the inspiration for his subsequent work as a member of A Tribe Called Quest and The Ummah.

[19] Muhammad discussed his experience recording Sons of Soul in a 1998 interview, saying that "I'd just hooked this beat up, and [the group] picked up their instruments and started playing.

[21][22] Songs such as "If I Had No Loot", "My Ex-Girlfriend", and "Tell Me Mama" incorporated lively tempos, strident harmonies,[23] melodic hooks and lead vocalist Raphael Wiggins' high tenor singing.

incorporated musical aspects from their R&B and hip hop contemporaries, thereby "representing black pop's Generation X. Mid- to late-twentysomethings caught [at] the tail end of the heyday of acts like Earth, Wind & Fire and Stevie Wonder [and] found themselves getting smacked in the face by the rap revolution.

"[17] The group reproduced what they sampled with live instrumentation, which Keyboard magazine interpreted as an analog approach to the principally digital hip hop genre.

[7] The lyrics on Sons of Soul were described by Los Angeles Times critic Connie Johnson as often quirky,[30] while Elysa Gardner from Vibe said they were flirtatious and tender, particularly on ballads such as "Slow Wine" and "(Lay Your Head on My) Pillow"; she felt the group's songwriting throughout the album possessed a "reverent" ethos.

"[22] The album opens with "If I Had No Loot", which features a New jack swing beat,[27] pronounced guitar licks,[6] vocal samples from hip hop songs,[31] and lyrics about fair-weather friends.

[22] Phil Gallo of the Los Angeles Times writes that the song utilizes "Jackson 5 and Temptations vocal stylings, Earth, Wind & Fire horn charts and riffs from Sly & the Family Stone hits".

[33] According to Rolling Stone journalist Franklin Soults, the album's first five songs comprise a "tour de force that bounces from Motown to New Jack Swing and back before breaking for a series of ballads as sexy as they are sweet".

"[22] "I Couldn't Keep It to Myself" features lush strings and electric piano, which "create a jaunty atmosphere that harkens back to early Kool and the Gang and the Blackbyrds.

[10] Elysa Gardner of Vibe calls it "a grandly romantic, nine-minute bolero that lavishes its female subject with such warmth and respect that the cheeky misogyny of ['My Ex-Girlfriend'] seems instantly forgiveable.

[10] Michael Saunders from The Boston Globe believed even without a song as great as their 1990 hit "Feels Good", the record was "unquestionably better than nearly all of the formulaic soul/pop albums littering the charts", featuring ballads that sounded intimate without being overly sentimental.

[62] Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic in his "Consumer Guide" column for The Village Voice, citing "If I Had No Loot" and "Anniversary" as highlights while jokingly calling the group "sexy liars of the year".

[28] In 1994, Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune attributed its resurgence to younger artists' blend of live instrumentation and hip hop production values, and cited Sons of Soul as "the most accomplished merger of hip-hop attitude with a '70s R&B aesthetic.

"[28] The Atlanta Journal-Constitution hailed it as "a gentle reminder of those glory days" and felt that the group having both vocal and musical talents is most indicative of a return to early R&B's aesthetics.

[28] Their concerts featured visual elements such as incense smoke and kaleidoscopic stage lighting, the group's eccentric wardrobe, and additional instrumentalists, including another guitarist, two drummers, two keyboardists, a violinist,[74][75] a trumpeter, and a saxophonist.

[8] The Charlotte Observer remarked on the group in 1994: "[T]heir use of live instruments on record and onstage makes them an anomaly in the synthesized and sampled world of modern R&B.

[32] Matt Weitz of The Dallas Morning News wrote in 1993 that the group had distinguished themselves from their New jack swing contemporaries with Sons of Soul and found them aesthetically akin to acts such as Prince and P.M.

[74] Raphael Wiggins said of their success with the album: We've been very blessed to be able to be a group that writes our own songs and people have accepted us from both sides, hip hop and the R&B crowd or whatever you might want to say.

[78] Vibe and the Philadelphia Daily News also viewed it as the group's best album;[72] the latter wrote that "it may be the project that got the public's ears ready for all the similarly soulful artists yet to come.

"[79] AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine felt that they "received their greatest chart success, without compromising their music", which "was still the finely crafted, highly eclectic and funky pop-soul that distinguished their first two albums," but with improved songwriting and playing.

[40] Rickey Wright of the Washington City Paper regarded the album as a "hyperactively brilliant" showcase for "deeply resourceful songwriters who kept up with their audience", adding that "hardly anything in '90s R&B has touched it".

[26] In The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), Franklin Soults mostly credited Raphael Wiggins for the record's success and said his "high tenor glides as smoothly and confidently as his songwriting".