The Soulquarians

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

The Soulquarians were a shifting collective of experimental Black musicians, active in the late 1990s and early 2000s. They began with the singer and multi-instrumentalist D'Angelo, the drummer and producer Questlove of The Roots and the producer and rapper J Dilla, with the keyboard player James Poyser as the fourth. The name comes from the star sign Aquarius, the shared birth sign of the founders. Later, Erykah Badu, Roy Hargrove, Bilal, the bassist Pino Palladino, Q-Tip, Mos Def, Talib Kweli and Common, among others, joined.

Music and breakthrough

The centre of the collective was Electric Lady Studios in New York, Jimi Hendrix's studio, with a lot of old equipment. The sessions began in 1997, when D'Angelo and Questlove were preparing his album Voodoo. They produced, among others, Things Fall Apart by The Roots in 1999, Mama's Gun by Badu and Like Water for Chocolate by Common, both in 2000, and later Phrenology by The Roots. Musicians played on each other's records. The style is described as neo-soul, alternative hip hop, progressive soul and jazz fusion, with offbeat rhythms, strange chords and a warm, organic sound. The lyrics dealt with personal themes and social concerns rather than with stock hip hop clichés.

Influence

The collective came to an end when some experimental records disappointed commercially, among them Electric Circus by Common and Love for Sale by Bilal, which stayed on the shelf for years. Questlove also named an article in Vibe as the beginning of the end. J Dilla died in 2006. The influence, however, remained great and can be heard in the generation of Robert Glasper, Esperanza Spalding and Kendrick Lamar.

Listening