There are no committees overseeing all of this, of course. If change occurs in music, it happens organically or not at all. How incredible, then, that not just one artist, but a whole host of them, arrived at about the same time to usher the music into a new millennium. Erykah Badu, Maxwell, Tony Rich, and Lauryn Hill (then making her mark with the Fugees) all came on the scene intent on moving forward, but only in a way that was mindful of R&B's rich history and respectful of the artists who had preceded them.

Also among this group of newcomers was Michael Arthur, known to the world at large as D'Angelo.