WHAT IS SOULFUL HOUSE?
ORIGIN, HISTORY AND MEANING

As House Music became more popular around the world, it became associated with the more extreme forms such as Acid House, Euro Hard House and Rave, etc. The real House Music connoisseurs stayed firmly on the side of more soul- and jazz-enriched forms of the genre – for many and for a while this  genre was tagged as Funky House, but again this term became somewhat abused and clichéd due to the populist crossover with UK Garage and 2Step, and with the resulting popularity, the music became more commercial, cheesy and pop-oriented. So today’s house music connoisseurs favour the terms “Soulful House” or “Deep House“.

Soulful House has a healthy underground scene, albeit split across the world with popular hot spots being Chicago, New York, London, Brazil, Melbourne and South Africa.   It remains fairly underground with a scene similar to the soul and jazz-funk scene in the 70s and 80s. The demographic is predominantly people in their late 20s upwards, with many liking the sound as reminiscent of what they grew up with in the 70s and 80s (i.e. soul, funk, disco and jazz coupled with early 80’s electronic music). Some of the popular artists at the forefront of soulful house are Masters at Work (Little Louie Vega & Kenny “Dope” Gonzales), Dennis Ferrer, Blaze, Barbara Tucker, Kenny Bobien, Stephanie Cooke (US) and in the UK, Joey Negro, Fanatix, The Layabouts, DeepCitySoul, Aphrodisiax, Soul Renegades and Andy Ward among others continue to grow and develop the scene.