Hardsoul starts here…
Uptown/MCA 1988
If not the first, this is the most important album to usher in the new sound of R&B that merged soul and hiphop. Some soul purists might even resent this body of work because it was responsible for New Jack Swing being the sound of Black radio; which led to R&B having to have some element of hiphop in it for radio from that point on.
