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Music writers have credited the breakthroughs of D ' Angelo's Brown Sugar ( 1995 ), Erykah Badu's Baduizm ( 1997 ), Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite ( 1996 ), and Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill ( 1998 ) with shaping and raising the neo soul movement to commercial visibility into the late 1990s.

According to Farley, D ' Angelo's album " gives a nod to the past, [...] mints his own sound, with golden humming keyboards and sensual vocals and unhurried melodies [...] His songs were polished without being slick and smart without being pretentious ", while Badu " brought an iconoclastic spirit to soul music, with her towering Afrocentric headwraps, incense candles, and quirky lyrics ".

Baduizm sold nearly three million copies and won Badu two Grammy Awards.

Hill's debut featured her singing and rapping, with deeply personal lyrics, and was one of neo soul's primary successes, achieving massive sales, critical acclaim, and five Grammy Awards.

Subsequently, other female neo soul artists broke through with their debut albums, including Macy Gray, Angie Stone, and Jill Scott.

The 1997 film Love Jones capitalized on neo soul's success at the time with its soundtrack album, which impacted the Billboard charts and featured artists such as Hill, Maxwell, The Brand New Heavies, Me ' Shell NdegéOcello, Groove Theory, and Dionne Farris.