Soul
Soul is a style of Black American popular music that joins the passionate singing of gospel to the rhythms of rhythm and blues.
It came out of the United States in the late 1950s and peaked in the 1960s and early 1970s. Typical records feature a powerful lead voice, call and response with backing singers, a tight rhythm section, horns and sometimes strings. Regional sounds grew up around labels such as Motown in Detroit and Stax in Memphis. Soul differs from the R&B before it in its church-style vocal intensity, and it led directly to funk and disco.
Artists it is known for: Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding.
- Family
- R&B & Soul
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A genre
- From
- United States, late 1950s
- Also called
- soul music
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 16%
About 14,000 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have soul among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Soul artists
Michael Jackson
Marvin Gaye
Stevie Wonder
Earth, Wind & Fire
Teddy Swims
Labi Siffre
Leon Bridges
D'Angelo
Etta James
The Jacksons
The soul artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.