Music and Lyrics
Sons of Soul expands on the traditional R&B influences of Tony! Toni! Toné!'s The Revival, with upbeat funk and classic Motown styles. Songs such as "If I Had No Loot", "My Ex-Girlfriend", and "Tell Me Mama" are characterized by lively tempos, strident harmonies, melodic hooks, and lead vocalist Raphael Wiggins' high tenor singing. Other songs are characterized by funk grooves, including "I Couldn't Keep It to Myself", "Gangsta Groove", "Fun", and "Tonyies! In the Wrong Key". Rick Mitchell of the Houston Chronicle writes that the songs' arrangements "cleverly ... integrate classic influences into contemporary grooves." Carl Allen of The Buffalo News asserts that the album "reconnect" black popular music "to its gospel/blues roots with hip-hop flair."
Along with older R&B, the album appropriates contemporary urban styles such as dancehall and hip hop. Its music incorporates hip hop beats, turntable scratches, and samples, which taken from both contemporary hip hop and older soul sources. Tony Green of the St. Petersburg Times views that Tony! Toni! Toné! incorporate musical aspects from their R&B and hip hop contemporaries, thereby "represent black pop's Generation X. Mid- to late-twentysomethings caught the tail end of the heyday of acts like Earth, Wind & Fire and Stevie Wonder found themselves getting smacked in the face by the rap revolution." Keyboard interprets their reproduction of samples with live instrumentation as an analog approach to the principally digital hip hop genre.
The songwriting on Sons of Soul is characterized by lyrics that are often quirky and, particularly on ballads such as "Slow Wine" and "(Lay Your Head on My) Pillow", flirtatious and tender. Raphael Wiggins is credited with the majority of the songwriting. Laura Zucker of The Sacramento Bee writes that most of the album is "solidly in the R&B tradition of sweet talking and romancing." Elysa Gardner of Vibe perceives a "reverent" ethos in the group's compositions on Sons of Soul. Unlike most contemporary R&B and hip hop music at the time, the album's lyrics lack profane language, with the exception of "My Ex-Girlfriend", which features the chorus "I couldn't believe it / They tried to tell me my ex-girlfriend is a ho!"
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