1980s

1980s and later

The emergence of hip hop culture in the late 1970s greatly influenced the soul music that followed in the 1980s. With Afrika Bambaata & The Soulsonic Force enjoying huge hits with beat-heavy tracks like "Planet Rock" and "Looking For The Perfect Beat", soul music-makers realised they would have to make their beats bigger, and also find a way of fusing soul and hip hop music. Production teams like James 'Jimmy Jam' Lewis and Terry Harris (former members of The Time), L.A. Reid and Babyface created a harder but also lusher almost epic soul sound, providing endless hits for Janet Jackson, Alexander O'Neal, The SOS Band and Bobby Brown. Writer/producer Teddy Riley and others created something called new jack swing (also known as swingbeat), which fused soul and hip hop. This sound provided hits for acts like Guy, Boyz II Men, Wreckx-n-Effect and Bell Biv DeVoe.

After the decline of disco and funk in the early 1980s, soul music survived for a short time before going through another metamorphosis. With the introduction of influences from electro music and funk, soul music became less raw and more slickly produced, resulting in a newer genre that was called R&B, (often known as contemporary R&B), which sounded very different from the original rhythm and blues style.

In early 1980s Chicago, a new dance genre called house was heavily influenced by soul, funk and disco. This was mainly made using synthesizers and other electronic equipment. House and techno rose to mainstream popularity in the late 1980s and remained popular in the 1990s and 2000s. Also starting in the 1980s, soul music from the United Kingdom become popular worldwide, with artists such as Soul II Soul, Loose Ends, Imagination, Mica Paris and Sade. British soul music became very popular in the 2000s too with artists such as Joss Stone, Terri Walker, Beverley Knight, Corrine Bailey Rae, Adele, Duffy, Amy Winehouse and the Brand New Heavies achieving great success.

The United States saw the development of neo-soul around 1994. Mainstream record label marketing support for soul genres cooled in the 2000s due to the industry's re-focus on hip hop.