What Is Southern Soul? A Beginner's Guide to the Movement

Southern Soul is contemporary, Black, Southern soul-blues, a living genre that descends from classic soul and the blues but sounds firmly of today. Some call it soul-blues; some still call it chitlin' circuit music after the network of Southern clubs and venues that nurtured it.

It's grown-folks music: songs about love, cheating, faith, partying, heartbreak and Saturday-night release, delivered with humor and zero pretension. The grooves are made for dancing, the lyrics for singing along.

For decades it thrived almost entirely outside the mainstream, built by independent artists, regional radio, and word of mouth, with Facebook and YouTube now serving as the genre's de facto national radio stations.

Today its stars headline arenas, sign to major labels, and rack up tens of millions of streams. The sound never changed. The world just finally started listening, and Southern Soul Nation is here to document every minute of it.