In a lot of ways when I first heard it for definite, just as rap was, this music was anti-hegemonic, though it would never have discussed itself in that way. It was black music first and foremost, and as such wasn't played or heard on mainstream radio or TV, you had to seek it out. It was largely heard on pirate radio or small shows squeezed into a mainstream station's programming. It's fanbase was mostly working class, and that's a huge component in England. Indie music/guitar music was for middle class cunts and wankers, the sort of people you'd give a shoeing to if you ever met them, which you rarely did. I mentioned upthread the crossover this this sort of stuff and football hooliganism. It's music for dancing and pulling. Me and a few mates always used to joke we'd never hear the end of "Somebody's Else Guy" by Jocelyn Brown when we were out 'cos a table would always be getting turned over, and someone would be shouting "Wayne! Leave him! He's not worth it!"
That all started to change in England when the brighter working class kids started going off to University en masse but that was a 90s phenomena really, one accentuated by the Blair years. I'm old enough to be talking from an 80s perspective which is when I came of age.
So one of the things you identified with listening to this stuff was it wasn't the mainstream at the time - that's probably less true with Anita Baker than other stuff in the thread tbh.
