text=Nu Soul actually started off pretty decent. Mary J. Blige, Lauren Hill, Macy Gray....it actually had SOUL. Good stuff. But somewhere around the turn of the millenium the wheels completely fell off the genre. I pinpoint the moment when everything went sour to be when every diva got really narcissistic, and the music coversely got really vapid and over-the-top. And also when Timbaland's productions got really annoying and derivative (and copied by everyone else). And also the string of endless collaberations in the industry. This was something stolen from hip hop--or more specifically, the Wu-Tang Clan model of industry saturation. Once someone became famous, the first thing they did was get their friends famous. And then, get even more famous by guest-starring on other famous people's records, because they knew fans of both artists would buy it, increasing sales. Cross promotion is the new order in the urban music industry. Everyone now has a hand in everyone elses albums, there isn't a single song left that isn't "featuring" someone else, and the whole industry is propping itself up like sheeves of corn. Quality sacrificed in favour of quantity. Is it making music? Hell no, its making money. And it's we who have to suffer for it.
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