Soul Music & Hip Hop

AJ Vogt
Feb 21, 2016
2 min read

It should not be a surprise that Soul music was a great precurssor to Hip Hop music. There were two major subgenres of soul music, which was Northern and Southern Soul. We will explore Soul music to understand how it's blood is felt in the veins of Hip Hop music.

First, as a quick overview, Southern Soul was different from Northern in the fact that this type of Soul has very gritty and ragged rhythm. Also, this type of Soul music was not geared towards a white audience or white population. Motown is the first time where white America is introduced to Soul music. Southern Soul draws a close connection to Gospel music. Lastly, Southern Soul is best exemplified by Ray Charles and James Brown.

A larger movement of Soul music was Northern Soul. In 1959, Motown was created, thus propelling Soul music into the media and to white America. Motown was created by Berry Gordy, who bought an eight room house that was known as "Hittville USA." With Motown, everything about Soul music is kept inside this house. Everything from writing, recording, publishing and packaging was kept in the house, which was something new in the music market. Berry Gordy hired individuals who worked with the artists on their image. Gordy even hired an in house choreographer. Also, special to Motown, and the first of its kind, was an in house band. This band was known as "The Funk Brothers" and they were one of the first racially integrated bands, and they played on all of the records produced in "Hittsville USA."

Thus, with the working on the image and presentaiton of an artist, Northern Soul was becoming pallatable to the rest of America. This is very important, because at this time in history, the Civil Rights Movement was alive and strong. Berry Gordy, a black man, owned a sucessfull record label, which at the time was unheard of. Gordy was churning out artists and number one hits just as good, if not better than his counterparts.

Motown became a nationwide success. Below is one of Motown's classics.