Soul Reincarnated

Soul Reincarnated

Labels: 80's Babies

While MTV refused to play videos by black artists until Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and was still slow to play others, BET developed a show that became a vehicle for the many R&B and budding rap stars of the period, Video Soul. Born in the same vein as Soul Train a decade before, Video Soul became BET's signature program and the place where black music was seen. The community now had a show that was dedicated to their favorite artists, their favorite songs.

Donnie Simpson, the green-eyed, sleepy-eyed host became sort of an icon because it was he who navigated us through the journey we took daily. Though he seemed cheesy at times and definitely made it seem like every guest was his favorite guest, Donnie Simpson was a part of many households during his run on Video Soul, which lasted from 1983 until 1997.
Artists would premiere videos, perform songs from their latest albums, and then talk to Donnie about what was going on in their careers and lives. It was a live magazine, up until then, we'd been reading Word Up! and Right On!, Jet and Ebony to find out what we wanted to know about our favorite stars. It was on Video Soul that I found out Bobby Brown left New Edition, then saw Johnny Gill as a new member, then saw Bell Biv Devoe perform for the first time. With the internet and fansites, gossip reporters and the like, it's hard to imagine not knowing much about your favorite recording star. I remember watching Donnie alongside EU doing "Da Butt" during their performance.

BET was vital to the survival of black music lovers in the 80's. MTV was catering to their heavy metal, rock and pop crowds; BET filled the void and introduced us to Whitney Houston, Anita Baker, En Vogue, Freddie Jackson, Keith Sweat, Jermaine Stewart, Levert, and countless others. It also was a home to the greats that we have loved for years like Stevie Wonder, Tina Turner, Barry White, and Luther Vandross.

Video Soul is where we saw the all grown up Janet Jackson take "control" of her career and life and launched her to superstardom. I remember the world premieres of "Control", "Nasty" and especially "The Pleasure Principle. The weekly Top 20 countdown which aired on Friday, would recap the favorite videos of the week and barely changed from week to week, gave way to Video Soul By Request, which aired on Saturday and allowed viewers to call and request their favorites.

Though the show was aimed at the adult viewer, there was really no schism in the music at the time, especially in R&B, but as BET began to shift its focus in the 90's to the younger audience, Sherry Carter was brought in to host an hour and more hip-hop acts began to appear. Ultimately, the show was reduced to an hour and timeslots were moved around to accommodate the growing popularity of other programming. As hip-hop grew, the popularity of Video Soul declined. Donnie Simpson suddenly seemed obsolete and much as the music video killed Soul Train, hip-hop and BET's allegiance to its crowd, caused the demise of Video Soul which was cancelled in 1997.