Aja is the sixth studio album by the American jazz rock band Steely Dan, released by ABC Records on September 23, 1977. On the album, band leaders Donald Fagen and Walter Becker pushed Steely Dan further into experimenting with different combinations of session players, enlisting the services of nearly 40 musicians, while pursuing longer, more sophisticated compositions and arrangements.
Jill Heather Scott is an American singer, songwriter, model, poet, and actress. Her 2000 debut album, Who Is Jill Scott?: Words and Sounds Vol. 1, went platinum and the follow-ups Beautifully Human: Words and Sounds Vol. 2 (2004) and The Real Thing: Words and Sounds Vol. 3 (2007) both achieved gold status.
Angela Laverne Brown known professionally as Angie Stone, is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and record producer. She rose to fame in the late 1970s as member of the hip hop trio The Sequence. In the early 1990s, she became a member of the R&B trio Vertical Hold. Stone would later release her solo debut Black Diamond (1999) on Arista Records, which was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America and spawned the single "No More Rain ".
Ashford & Simpson were an American husband-and-wife songwriting, production, recording duo composed of Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson.
Jonathan David Buck is an American R&B singer, songwriter and record producer. His debut album Bonafide (1995) spawned the hit singles "Pretty Girl" and "Someone to Love", the latter of which reached the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100 and was nominated at the Grammys Awards for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. The following year, he co-wrote the single "Say You'll Be There" for the Spice Girls. His second album Cool Relax (1997), was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Cool Relax included the hit singles "Are U Still Down" and "They Don't Know". His third album, Pleasures U Like (2001) reached the top ten on the Billboard 200 chart.
Glennon Ricketts Jr., professionally known as Glenn Lewis, is a Canadian neo soul singer–songwriter. Lewis earned a Grammy Award nomination in 2004 and has also won a Juno Award out of a total of six nominations.
Floetry were an English R&B duo comprising Marsha Ambrosius and Natalie Stewart. The group recorded two studio albums, one live album, and sold over 1,500,000 records worldwide. Formed in 1997, Floetry started on the performance poetry stage. They have worked with many US musicians and artists including: Jill Scott, Queen Latifah, Michael Jackson, Common, The Roots, Bilal, and more founders of neo soul.
Caron Melina Wheeler is an English singer, songwriter, record producer and musician. Born and raised in London, she performed in various singing competitions as a teenager and began her recording career as one of the founding members of Brown Sugar. She was also one of the founding members of the female backing vocalist group Afrodiziak. She officially rose to fame in the late 1980s as the lead singer of R&B group Soul II Soul. Managed by her bandmate, Jazzie B, the group became one of London's best-selling groups in the 1990s. Their debut album, Club Classics Vol. One (1989), which established them as a global success worldwide, earned two Grammy Awards and featured the UK and Billboard number-one singles "Keep on Movin'" and "Back to Life ".
Gerald Maxwell Rivera, known mononymously as Maxwell, is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. He rose to prominence following the release of his debut studio album Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite (1996), which received widespread acclaim and spawned the hit singles "Ascension " and "Sumthin' Sumthin'". Through the album and its follow ups, Maxwell has been cited—along with Lauryn Hill, D'Angelo, and Erykah Badu—for ushering in the neo soul movement and its sensibilities into mainstream popular music during the late 1990s.
BeBe & CeCe Winans are an American gospel/R&B music brother and sister duo. BeBe and CeCe Winans are the seventh and eighth of the Winans family's ten children, most of whom have had gospel music careers. Together, they have received several awards, including three Grammys.
Brenda Russell is an American singer-songwriter, producer, and keyboardist. Russell has a diverse musical range which encompasses R&B, pop, soul, dance, and jazz. She has received five Grammy nominations.
"After the Love Has Gone" is a song by Earth, Wind & Fire, released in 1979 as the second single from their ninth studio album I Am on ARC/Columbia Records. The song reached No. 2 on both the US Billboard Hot 100 and the Billboard Hot R&B Singles chart, No. 3 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, and No. 4 on the UK Singles Chart. "After the Love Has Gone" was certified gold in the US by the RIAA and silver in the UK by the BPI.
Antonio Jeffries, better known as Tony Rich and The Tony Rich Project, is an American Grammy-award-winning Contemporary singer-songwriter best known for his hit single "Nobody Knows".
Hidden Beach is an American independent record label known for R&B, soul, inspirational and contemporary jazz genres. Hidden Beach was formed in 1998 by Steve McKeever and holds a distribution deal with Universal Music Group.
Malik Yusef El Shabazz Jones is an American spoken word artist, poet, rapper, music producer, and director based in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
Jazmine Marie Sullivan is an American R&B and soul singer-songwriter. She has won two Grammy Awards, a Billboard Women in Music Award, and two BET Awards over the course of her career. In 2022, Time placed her on their list of the 100 Most Influential People.
Xscape is an American girl group from Atlanta, Georgia, formed in 1990 by Kandi Burruss, Tamera Coggins, Tameka "Tiny" Cottle, LaTocha Scott, and Tamika Scott. The following year, Coggins left the group and Xscape became a quartet. They were discovered by Jermaine Dupri who signed the group to his So So Def label. The group released their debut album Hummin' Comin' at 'Cha in 1993, which spawned two top-ten Billboard Hot 100 hits, "Just Kickin' It" and "Understanding". The album sold over one million copies in the United States, earning a platinum-certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
Conya Doss is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, and has been a major figure in independent music for over two decades. Conya is known as an innovator and is widely known for her eclectic work and light vocal range. She is known as The Queen of Indie Soul. Her music combines R&B, soul, funk, neo soul, and jazz.
Melanie Fiona Hallim is a Canadian singer and songwriter. She was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario. She began her career in 2002 as part of a Canadian R&B trio X-Quisite, who was nominated for a Juno Award for R&B/Soul Recording of the Year for their self-titled album (2004). She went on to form the duo The Renaissance with hometown native Drake, although they released no albums.
Surrender to Love is the debut studio album by American neo soul group Kindred the Family Soul, released February 25, 2003 via Hidden Beach Recordings. It peaked at #159 on the Billboard 200 and #29 on the Billboard R&B chart. The album's only official single was "Far Away", which peaked at #53 on the Billboard R&B singles chart.
