Soulquarians
Encyclopedia
The Soulquarians is a neo soul
and hip hop
-informed musical collective
with members from Philadelphia
, New York
, Detroit
, Richmond
, Brooklyn, Chicago, Dallas
, and Oakland
. The collective formed during the late 1990s, continuing into the early 2000s, and produced several well-received albums. Prior to its formation, members Common
, Talib Kweli
, Mos Def
, and Q-Tip
were members of the Native Tongues Posse
.
Producer and drummer Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson of hip hop band The Roots
acted as the "musical powerhouse" behind several of the collective's projects during the late 1990s and early 2000s, including The Roots' Things Fall Apart
(1999), D'Angelo
's Voodoo (2000), Erykah Badu
's Mama's Gun
(2000), and Common's Like Water for Chocolate
(2000). In an interview for Spin
magazine, Common discussed the production of those albums, stating "It was one of those time period that you don't even realize when you're going through it that it's powerful".
, and J Dilla
— share sign of Aquarius. Questlove, D'Angelo, Poyser, and J Dilla came together after discovering they had a common interest for the unconventional — offbeat rhythm
s, irregular chord
s, and other traits often exhibited by the underground
urban music
scene. Also around this time, a connection was established between D'Angelo and Welsh bassist Pino Palladino
over their mutual love of Motown and other classic soul music, and Palladino became active in the project, playing on the majority of their discography and serving as a member of the Soultronics
touring band that supported D'Angelo's Voodoo tour.
Being a collective, they included a rotating list of members, including Common
, Mos Def, Talib Kweli
, Q-Tip
, Erykah Badu
, Bilal, and Raphael Saadiq
. In a 2003 interview, Questlove unequivocally stated that there were no plans for a Soulquarians album release for the foreseeable future. This was interpreted as a silent breakup of the outfit. However, according to an interview with Common (circa 2005), the collective continues to exist.
Neo soul
The term neo soul was originally coined by Kedar Massenburg of Motown Records in the late 1990s as a marketing category following the commercial breakthroughs of artists such as D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, and Maxwell...
and hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
-informed musical collective
Musical collective
Musical collective is a phrase used to describe a group of musicians in which membership is flexible and creative control is shared. Such entities have transitioned from the traditional hierarchical configuration that features either a frontman , or a plurality of band members in tension for...
with members from Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, Detroit
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
, Richmond
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
, Brooklyn, Chicago, Dallas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
, and Oakland
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
. The collective formed during the late 1990s, continuing into the early 2000s, and produced several well-received albums. Prior to its formation, members Common
Common (rapper)
Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr. , better known by his stage name Common , is an American hip-hop artist and actor....
, Talib Kweli
Talib Kweli
Talib Kweli Greene , better known as Talib Kweli, is an American hip-hop artist and poet from Brooklyn, New York. His first name in Arabic means "student" or "seeker" ; his in Swahili means "true"...
, Mos Def
Mos Def
Dante Terrell Smith is an American actor and Emcee known by the stage names Mos Def and Yasiin Bey. He started his hip hop career in a group called Urban Thermo Dynamics, after which he appeared on albums by Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. With Talib Kweli, he formed the duo Black Star, which...
, and Q-Tip
Q-Tip (rapper)
Kamaal Ibn John Fareed , better known by his stage name Q-Tip, is an American hip hop artist, producer, singer, and actor from St. Albans, Queens, New York, part of the critically acclaimed group A Tribe Called Quest...
were members of the Native Tongues Posse
Native Tongues Posse
The Native Tongues is a collective of late 1980s and early 1990s hip-hop artists known for their positive-minded, good-natured Afrocentric lyrics, and for pioneering the use of eclectic sampling and later jazz-influenced beats. Its principal members are the Jungle Brothers, De La Soul, and A Tribe...
.
Producer and drummer Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson of hip hop band The Roots
The Roots
The Roots is an American hip hop/neo soul band formed in 1987 by Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter and Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are famed for beginning with a jazzy, eclectic approach to hip hop which still includes live instrumentals...
acted as the "musical powerhouse" behind several of the collective's projects during the late 1990s and early 2000s, including The Roots' Things Fall Apart
Things Fall Apart (album)
Things Fall Apart is the fourth studio album by American hip hop band The Roots, released February 23, 1999 on Geffen Records. Recording sessions for the album took place at Electric Lady Studios during 1997 to 1999, coinciding with recording for other projects of the Soulquarians collective,...
(1999), D'Angelo
D'Angelo
Michael Eugene Archer , better known by his stage name D'Angelo, is an American R&B and neo soul singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He is known for his production and songwriting talents as much as for his vocal abilities, and often draws comparisons to his influences,...
's Voodoo (2000), Erykah Badu
Erykah Badu
Erica Abi Wright , better known by her stage name Erykah Badu , is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. Her work includes elements from R&B, hip hop and jazz. She is best known for her role in the rise of the neo soul sub-genre, and for her eccentric, cerebral musical...
's Mama's Gun
Mama's Gun
Mama's Gun is the second studio album by American recording artist Erykah Badu, released November 21, 2000, on Motown Records. Recording sessions for the album took place from 1999 to 2000 at Electric Lady Studios in New York City...
(2000), and Common's Like Water for Chocolate
Like Water for Chocolate (album)
Like Water for Chocolate is the fourth studio album by American hip hop rapper Common, released March 28, 2000 on MCA Records. It was a considerable critical and commercial breakthrough for Common, receiving generally favorable reviews from major magazine publications and selling 70,000 copies in...
(2000). In an interview for Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
magazine, Common discussed the production of those albums, stating "It was one of those time period that you don't even realize when you're going through it that it's powerful".
Background
The name of the collective is derived from an astrology sign. The founding members of the collective — Ahmir Thompson a.k.a. Questlove from The Roots, D'Angelo, James PoyserJames Poyser
James Poyser in Sheffield, England is a multi-Grammy winning songwriter, musician and multi-platinum producer.Poyser has written and produced songs for various legendary and award-winning artists including Erykah Badu, Mariah Carey, John Legend, Lauryn Hill, Common, Anthony Hamilton, D'Angelo,...
, and J Dilla
J Dilla
James Dewitt Yancey , better known by the stage names J Dilla and Jay Dee, was an American record producer who emerged from the mid-1990s underground hip hop scene in Detroit, Michigan...
— share sign of Aquarius. Questlove, D'Angelo, Poyser, and J Dilla came together after discovering they had a common interest for the unconventional — offbeat rhythm
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
s, irregular chord
Chord (music)
A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...
s, and other traits often exhibited by the underground
Subculture
In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a group of people with a culture which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong.- Definition :...
urban music
Mainstream Urban
Mainstream Urban is a term used to describe a radio format similar to an Urban Contemporary format. The format differentiates itself due to two factors: playlist composition and target demographic...
scene. Also around this time, a connection was established between D'Angelo and Welsh bassist Pino Palladino
Pino Palladino
Pino Palladino is a Welsh bass guitarist who gained fame playing primarily rock and roll, blues rock, and rhythm and blues music, although he has been lauded for his ability to play most genres of popular music, including jazz, neo soul, and funk...
over their mutual love of Motown and other classic soul music, and Palladino became active in the project, playing on the majority of their discography and serving as a member of the Soultronics
The Soultronics
The Soultronics was an American R&B and neo soul supergroup that served as the backing band for musician D'Angelo in 2000 during The Voodoo Tour, the supporting tour for his second studio album Voodoo...
touring band that supported D'Angelo's Voodoo tour.
Being a collective, they included a rotating list of members, including Common
Common (rapper)
Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr. , better known by his stage name Common , is an American hip-hop artist and actor....
, Mos Def, Talib Kweli
Talib Kweli
Talib Kweli Greene , better known as Talib Kweli, is an American hip-hop artist and poet from Brooklyn, New York. His first name in Arabic means "student" or "seeker" ; his in Swahili means "true"...
, Q-Tip
Q-Tip (rapper)
Kamaal Ibn John Fareed , better known by his stage name Q-Tip, is an American hip hop artist, producer, singer, and actor from St. Albans, Queens, New York, part of the critically acclaimed group A Tribe Called Quest...
, Erykah Badu
Erykah Badu
Erica Abi Wright , better known by her stage name Erykah Badu , is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. Her work includes elements from R&B, hip hop and jazz. She is best known for her role in the rise of the neo soul sub-genre, and for her eccentric, cerebral musical...
, Bilal, and Raphael Saadiq
Raphael Saadiq
Raphael Saadiq is an American singer, songwriter and record producer. Saadiq has been a standard bearer for "old school" R&B since his early days as a member of the multiplatinum group Tony! Toni! Toné! He also produced songs of such artists as TLC, Joss Stone, D'Angelo, Mary J...
. In a 2003 interview, Questlove unequivocally stated that there were no plans for a Soulquarians album release for the foreseeable future. This was interpreted as a silent breakup of the outfit. However, according to an interview with Common (circa 2005), the collective continues to exist.
Members
- Questlove (Philadelphia)
- BilalBilal (musician)Bilal Sayeed Oliver , better known by his stage name Bilal, is an American neo soul/jazz singer-songwriter, musician and producer. He is also a core member of the loose collective, the Soulquarians. Bilal started out by singing in small clubs until he began classical training in jazz and big-band...
(Philadelphia) - Common (Chicago)
- Erykah BaduErykah BaduErica Abi Wright , better known by her stage name Erykah Badu , is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. Her work includes elements from R&B, hip hop and jazz. She is best known for her role in the rise of the neo soul sub-genre, and for her eccentric, cerebral musical...
(Dallas) - D'AngeloD'AngeloMichael Eugene Archer , better known by his stage name D'Angelo, is an American R&B and neo soul singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He is known for his production and songwriting talents as much as for his vocal abilities, and often draws comparisons to his influences,...
(Richmond) - James PoyserJames PoyserJames Poyser in Sheffield, England is a multi-Grammy winning songwriter, musician and multi-platinum producer.Poyser has written and produced songs for various legendary and award-winning artists including Erykah Badu, Mariah Carey, John Legend, Lauryn Hill, Common, Anthony Hamilton, D'Angelo,...
(Philadelphia) - Mos DefMos DefDante Terrell Smith is an American actor and Emcee known by the stage names Mos Def and Yasiin Bey. He started his hip hop career in a group called Urban Thermo Dynamics, after which he appeared on albums by Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. With Talib Kweli, he formed the duo Black Star, which...
(New York City) - Q-TipQ-Tip (rapper)Kamaal Ibn John Fareed , better known by his stage name Q-Tip, is an American hip hop artist, producer, singer, and actor from St. Albans, Queens, New York, part of the critically acclaimed group A Tribe Called Quest...
(New York City) - Talib KweliTalib KweliTalib Kweli Greene , better known as Talib Kweli, is an American hip-hop artist and poet from Brooklyn, New York. His first name in Arabic means "student" or "seeker" ; his in Swahili means "true"...
(New York City) - Pino PalladinoPino PalladinoPino Palladino is a Welsh bass guitarist who gained fame playing primarily rock and roll, blues rock, and rhythm and blues music, although he has been lauded for his ability to play most genres of popular music, including jazz, neo soul, and funk...
(CardiffCardiffCardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...
)
- J DillaJ DillaJames Dewitt Yancey , better known by the stage names J Dilla and Jay Dee, was an American record producer who emerged from the mid-1990s underground hip hop scene in Detroit, Michigan...
(Detroit) (deceased)
Discography
Albums produced wholly or partly by the Soulquarians:| Year | Artist | Album | RIAA Certification RIAA certification In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America awards certification based on the number of albums and singles sold through retail and other ancillary markets. Other countries have similar awards... |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | The Roots The Roots The Roots is an American hip hop/neo soul band formed in 1987 by Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter and Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are famed for beginning with a jazzy, eclectic approach to hip hop which still includes live instrumentals... |
Things Fall Apart Things Fall Apart (album) Things Fall Apart is the fourth studio album by American hip hop band The Roots, released February 23, 1999 on Geffen Records. Recording sessions for the album took place at Electric Lady Studios during 1997 to 1999, coinciding with recording for other projects of the Soulquarians collective,... |
Gold |
| 2000 | D'Angelo D'Angelo Michael Eugene Archer , better known by his stage name D'Angelo, is an American R&B and neo soul singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He is known for his production and songwriting talents as much as for his vocal abilities, and often draws comparisons to his influences,... |
Voodoo | Platinum |
| 2000 | Common Common (rapper) Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr. , better known by his stage name Common , is an American hip-hop artist and actor.... |
Like Water for Chocolate Like Water for Chocolate (album) Like Water for Chocolate is the fourth studio album by American hip hop rapper Common, released March 28, 2000 on MCA Records. It was a considerable critical and commercial breakthrough for Common, receiving generally favorable reviews from major magazine publications and selling 70,000 copies in... |
Gold |
| 2000 | Erykah Badu Erykah Badu Erica Abi Wright , better known by her stage name Erykah Badu , is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. Her work includes elements from R&B, hip hop and jazz. She is best known for her role in the rise of the neo soul sub-genre, and for her eccentric, cerebral musical... |
Mama's Gun Mama's Gun Mama's Gun is the second studio album by American recording artist Erykah Badu, released November 21, 2000, on Motown Records. Recording sessions for the album took place from 1999 to 2000 at Electric Lady Studios in New York City... |
Platinum |
| 2001 | Bilal Bilal (musician) Bilal Sayeed Oliver , better known by his stage name Bilal, is an American neo soul/jazz singer-songwriter, musician and producer. He is also a core member of the loose collective, the Soulquarians. Bilal started out by singing in small clubs until he began classical training in jazz and big-band... |
1st Born Second 1st Born Second 1st Born Second is the debut album of American neo soul musician Bilal, released July 17, 2001 on Interscope Records. Production for the album was handled primarily by Bilal and Aaron Comess. Bilal's mononymous stage name also serves as an acronym for "Beloved, Intelligent, Lustful and Livin' It"... |
319,000 copies |
| 2002 | The Roots | Phrenology Phrenology (album) Phrenology is the fifth studio album by American hip hop band The Roots, released November 26, 2002, on Geffen Records and MCA Records. Recording sessions for the album took place during June 2000 to September 2002... |
Gold |
| 2002 | Common | Electric Circus Electric Circus (album) Electric Circus is the fifth studio album by rapper Common, released December 10, 2002 on the now-defunct MCA Records. The album was highly anticipated and praised by many critics for its ambitious vision. However, it was not as commercially successful as his previous album, Like Water for... |
293,000 copies |
External links
- Soulquarians at DiscogsDiscogsDiscogs, short for discographies, is a website and database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. The Discogs servers, currently hosted under the domain name discogs.com, are owned by Zink Media, Inc., and are...
- Soulquarians — By Vibe
- Soulquarians in the news from MTV NewsMTV NewsMTV News is the news division of MTV, one of the first and most popular music television network in the U.S., as well as some of MTV's related channels around the world. MTV News began in the late 1980s with the program The Week In Rock, hosted by Kurt Loder, the first official MTV News correspondent...