"Nothing about soul singing had moved me, from any 90s offering, the same way it did with Otis Redding, Stevie Wonder, Lou Rawls. A year later, with D'Angelo's debut album Brown Sugar on the shelves, Questlove had radically reconsidered his opinion: when he spotted the singer in the audience at a show the Roots were playing, he thwarted and threw off the entire show by suddenly playing an obscure Prince drum roll in a (successful) attempt to attract his attention."
"It was that it singlehandedly ushered in a new era and musical sub-genre: the term neo-soul was literally invented for it, as a marketing tool. In time, neo-soul came to signify music slavishly devoted to recreating the past, but that wasn't the point of Brown Sugar at all. There was certainly vintage equipment involved in its making, a Smokey Robinson cover lurking among its tracks, and a distinct hint of Donny Hathaway and Al Green about D'Angelo's falsetto vocals:"
Questlove initially rejected working with a new 90s soul singer because contemporary soul did not move him like Otis Redding, Stevie Wonder or Lou Rawls. After Brown Sugar's release he dramatically changed his view, attracting D'Angelo's attention at a show and later collaborating as part of the Soulquarians with J Dilla on Voodoo. Brown Sugar went platinum and prompted the marketing coinage neo-soul. The album combined vintage equipment and classic influences, included a Smokey Robinson cover, and fused hints of jazz, gospel and blues with a strong hip-hop sensibility and Prince-inspired production.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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