1) Teena Marie
How can you argue against “Lady T”? She gave us “Firm Biz”, “Portuguese Love”, “Déjà Vu”, “I Need Your Lovin”, etc…Motown was afraid to put her own face on the albums because folks would not have believed that she was white. They did so anyways and nobody cared. On top of that, she dated Rick James AND was at one point in time signed to Cash Money!!!!
2) Justin Timberlake
Anytime your first solo record has nothing but production by The Neptunes and Timbaland, you just might have a R&B album in the making…I even accused him of stealing Usher's mojo from him(but it was really Tamika that did it) just because I saw some similarities between them. The dance moves, the falsetto/1st tenor registry. Honestly, dude has got some chops that i should have believed at first listen to "Gone" when he was with N'Sync.
3) Hall & Oates
"Say No Go", "Sarah Smile", even "Private Eyes" gets love from me on this list. A few cats back in the day even did covers of their songs that garnered attention.
4) Jamiroquai
As far as Brits having soul goes, these guys carried the mantle once Heatwave went into a deep freeze. Wham! was more pop, but these cats were grooving from an RnB foundation that eerily mirrored The Brand new heavies(Who don't qualify because of N'Dea Davenport on vocals) at the time. They did kind of go hand-in-hand you could say. Joints like "Return of The Space Cowboy", "Virtual Insanity", "Cosmic Girl", and "Canned Heat" are good examples to mention, even if they kind of branched off into disco later on in the 1990s.
5) Robin Thicke
I'll blatantly say that putting him on the list afforded me the reason to post up a picture of his wife. However, he actually has made contributions to land him on this list. "Wanna Love You Girl", "The Sweetest Love", "Lost Without You", & "When I get You Alone" all had some soul(albeit some disco rehashing with that last anmed joint) that folks got down with unquestionably.
6) Simply Red
“Holding Back the years” and one of the best covers of “If You Don’t Know me By Now” that would put Jaheim into oblivion(it won’t be hard to do now) is good enough for me!
7) George Michael/Wham
This is a curve ball but its valid in that “Everything She Wants” is an 80s banger and “Careless Whisper” can be played regularly on any quiet storm radio show in the USA. The only negative is that cover he did of Stevie’s “As” with Mary J. Blige…
8) Jon B.
It hurts me to put him so far down, but dude really ain't had nothing substantial since "Are You Still Down?"...and that was when Pac was officially alive! But, still, dude had some joints and he kicked it off something stellar by having his first single as a duet with Babyface. I knew dude would be a force to mess with when he did a cover of "My Cherie Amour" on NY Undercover(I'm still mad that it didn't make the soundtrack to that show).
Honorable Mention: Michael McDonald, Rick Astley, Remy Shand, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Bobby Caldwell, Maroon 5
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