Teddy Riley

Many cite the birthplace of Hip Hop soul as the offices of New York's Uptown Records, the label owned by Andre Harrell, one half of the former rap group Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde. It was at Uptown that college student Puffy got his start as an intern-turned-A&R executive. Uptown's roster included Heavy D, Missjones, tattooed quartet Jodeci, and the soon-to-be Queen of Hip Hop Soul Mary J. Blige. These artists and Puffy's uncanny talent at predicting and shaping what would be the next big thing kept Uptown in constant rotation on urban radio stations, BET, and, more and more frequently, pop outlets like MTV. Uptown and later Puffy at his own Bad Boy label was arguably the force that propelled Hip Hop soul, giving the sound a name and dress code ("ghetto fabulous," a term used everywhere from The Source to Vogue to The New York Times to describe the knee-high boots over jeans for women, the Timberlands even in the summer for men, the diamonds, furs, baggy jeans, and vests that mixed designer runway pieces with Brooklyn's Fulton Mall finds). But it was actually Teddy Riley, leader of the R&B trio Guy (singed, incidentally, to Uptown), who deserves credit as the man who changed soul music history. Back in the late '80s, before Harrell, Puffy, or Uptown, Riley responded to the generational and class divides that were occurring in the black musical landscape, where the adult contemporary sounds of Luther Vandross, Whitney Houston, and Anita Baker could not occupy the same radio space as N.W.A., The 2 Live Crew, or Public Enemy. A 1988 Village Voice cover story on the Harlem singer/musician/producer by journalist (and future New Jack City screenwriter) Barry Michael Cooper said that what Riley was doing namely marrying the gospel-based vocals of traditional soul with the rhythms and grooves of funk and Hip Hop was the music of a new era. Cooper dubbed it "new jack swing." And soon its stars, in addition to Riley's Guy, included the Force MDs (a trio whose name stood for musical diversity and who scored such '80s hits as "Tears," "Tender Love," and "Love Is A House"); Al B. Sure!; Alexander O'Neal; Bel Biv DeVoe; and Bobby Brown, whose 1988 post-New Edition solo debut, Don't Be Cruel, was co-produced by Riley and had all the testosterone-laden, bad-boy theatrics to make him a precursor to Jodeci.