Since the ‘90s, Kedar Massenburg has occupied a unique space in Black music culture — part visionary, part architect, part cultural preservationist. To some, he is the executive who helped introduce the world to D’Angelo, Erykah Badu, and a generation of artists who recentered soul music around Black consciousness, live instrumentation, and ancestral pride. To others, he is the man who coined the term “neo-soul,” a phrase that would go on to define one of the most influential musical movements in modern R&B history.
According to Massenburg, what the world often misunderstands is that neo-soul was never created as a gimmick for commerce. “This ain’t no marketing bullshit,” Massenburg says emphatically. “This was a movement.”
The debate reignited recently after R&B singer and producer Raphael Saadiq, formerly of the legendary group Tony! Toni! Toné!, criticized the term neo-soul in an interview, suggesting it was a label created by executives to segment Black music and limit how major labels marketed certain artists. Massenburg, however, rejects that interpretation entirely, arguing that the phrase was born from culture, not corporate strategy.
“First of all, let’s be real clear,” he explains. “I wasn’t an executive when I created the term in 1995. I was a manager. It wasn’t created by an executive. It was created by a visionary from a cultural background.”
