When and why did R&B die?!?

Nightshade said:
It was about the time R Kelly entered the ranks and finished it off. He pushed the genre from being in love with your woman and romancing her to "let's get butt nekkid and f*ck like rabbits" ditching any pretense at romance.
Click to expand...

SMH and you have your usual Goof Troop cosigning. R. Kelly wasn't the first person, only person, or even the last person to talk about that stuff or "finish it off". What is so different that the modern RapSingers are doing that R. Kelly wasn't besides talkin about ice and catchin bodies?
 
Last time I checked Dwele, Marsha Ambrosius, Jill Scott, Musiq Soulchild were selling out shows here in Baltimore and DC.

Now, the question I have is why aren't RnB GROUPS still selling like they used to? I was in Shepherdstown, WV over a year ago (don't hate - I love taking my girl out into nature and it's a 30 minute drive from DC) and guess who I see skrugglin to sell out the University with $35 tickets...Jagged Edge.
 
wildinout8 said:
and guess who I see skrugglin to sell out the University with $35 tickets...Jagged Edge.
Click to expand...

wow............they were #1 on the R&B charts last week...............

But damn I'm glad I went to the R&B charts......got some music to check out....
R&B Albums : Page 1 | Billboard


^^^^see what I'm sayin though? Damn near all of those albums were #1.............does it even matter? People can easily say "my album was a number 1 album"..... But damn "KEM" got a new album.....fuuck the popularity...... that album is on my mind now to listen to. And that's the "future"......more and more people will be able to find music "that they like" vs being force fed trends.
 
Last edited:
wildinout8 said:
Last time I checked Dwele, Marsha Ambrosius, Jill Scott, Musiq Soulchild were selling out shows here in Baltimore and DC.

Now, the question I have is why aren't RnB GROUPS still selling like they used to? I was in Shepherdstown, WV over a year ago (don't hate - I love taking my girl out into nature and it's a 30 minute drive from DC) and guess who I see skrugglin to sell out the University with $35 tickets...Jagged Edge.
Click to expand...

It's probably due to bad promoting. Jagged Edge has the older audience and they're scattered throughout the DMV. They work and might not even know Jagged Edge was performing. The true test is to book them in them same venues in Baltimore and DC as the other artists you mentioned and see if they still have trouble selling tickets. The University is filled with the ages 18-23. That's not jagged Edge's audience.
 
Last edited:
MrJames851 said:
Like JeanLuk said R&B isn't dead because he listens to Kwab, whoever that is ... How many of your friends know who he is?
Click to expand...

All the music fans on radio? About every single person who played & will play Fifa '15 & dunno, #3 track on iTunes in Germany and other countries?

That's the point. I really do love music deep down below, before it all came to the business side of it & that's why I can separate the two and don't need to validate the one with the other and don't need conspiracy theories as to why something that becomes self-absorbed and stale..............becomes self-absorbed & stale.

It's simply not innovative, "hip" & "funky" anymore.

Somehow though, the public doesn't care.....or maybe, just maybe, it's not YOUR generation anymore?
It's not music for YOU anymore? What if YOU are too old for the NEW, and not the new ones too young for your OLD SH*T?
A new generation needs its own sound and new cinematography.
And it gets it. That "new shit" - no matter if you approve of it or not.

[video]http://vevo.ly/i6qGHd[/video]
 
this is a good discussion. I don't play the radio constantly but there are some R&B artists still making good music. I actually thought R&B was back when Maxwell dropped his last album, because since then there have been some decent flow of good R&B music out there. But it seems that for every R&B song there's another pop or club track getting more radio spins. I feel sorry for the youth; many of them have never been exposed to the R&B of the 90's.

Im 33 and grew up in the 80s and 90s and for the most part I was into the same music that the adults were into when I was a kid. It seemed that music was more soulful and connected with everyone and the subject matter in songs back then was more mature. I think R&B lost steam when hiphop and club music became the main attraction in the early to mid 00's.

Today, we have good records coming out but R&B doesn't dominate the charts like it use to. Like Miquel's Adorn, it was a hit with but never reached #1 on billboard, not even close. I don't know if it's because we aren't buying music like we use should or not, but today its all pop on the Billboard 100. I think having music video shows like video soul wo

the youth need to be exposed to music like this.



 
IMHO, 90's R&B was garbage. Seriously formulaic, push button music. Everyone sounded the same. No one took any chances. It was a very one dimensional time in R&B music. Early to mid 80's was the best.

Rick James, Prince, MJ, George Clinton, Cameo, Roger, Luther, etc ... The 80's list is endless. And, they all had their own sound, image and way of doing things. And when you saw them perform, wow! It was almost superhuman how good these acts were live. Especially when you compare them to their 90's counterparts.

Of course there were some great acts in the 90's. R. Kelly was one and so was Maxwell. Butt they were far and few between. Plus, they had no fire. They sounded good but there was nothing bigger than life to them. They were nice but very sleepy time.
 
Last edited:
lateef7842 said:
IMHO, 90's R&B was garbage. Seriously formulaic, push button music. Everyone sounded the same. No one took any chances. It was a very one dimensional time in R&B music. Early to mid 80's was the best.

Rick James, Prince, MJ, George Clinton, Cameo, Roger, Luther, etc ... The 80's list is endless. And, they all had their own sound, image and way of doing things. And when you saw them perform, wow! It was almost superhuman how good these acts were live. Especially when you compare them to their 90's counterparts.

Of course there were some great acts in the 90's. R. Kelly was one and so was Maxwell. Butt they were far and few between. Plus, they had no fire. They sounded good but there was nothing bigger than life to them. They were nice but very sleepy time.
Click to expand...

Honest truth and neo-soul was and felt like the R&B equivalent to Smooth Jazz. I can only vibe to Maxwell, Jill Scott, Bilal and 'cause I dig her Father's work, Lalah Hathaway.
 
Last edited:
MR44khz said:
I think it died because there's no money in black love in the youth coming up. The youngstas coming up consider most if not all women bi**ches and ho*s. You'll make more money with them talking about beef,violence and getting the booty type songs. This was planned decades ago by the powers that be to divide and conquer blacks. The goal is to create distrust between the black male/female that never existed in history before. Just like in the game of chess once you get the queen won't be long before you checkmate the king,which is the ultimate goal by some in power. No other race puts down their women like black males do period! The white woman is a queen to white men and he will always uplift her and put her on a pedestal,the same can be said about all other races. The industry by design has destroyed the image of strong black women (like florida evans from good times) to women who are referred to as bit**ches and are thought of as being untrustworthy,gold diggers,scandalous or just all around shady characters. The black woman will only go as far as the black man leads in our community. Case in point male rappers started calling black women b**ches now black women not only answer to this derogatory name but call themselves bit**ches. Apparently,your not a good black woman nowadays unless you're a bad bit**ch. The plan/brainwashing has worked so well that successful black men marry other races because the black woman is portrayed as being less than wife material.

I remember growing up listening to too short (don't fight the feeling and cuss words) for first time i looked at black women as competitors that i had to conquer for some reason. Dudes really started doing that ish too short was spitting about like "if she don't want to give her number that ain't shit,just drop a few lines and call her a *****". From then on black women had to be on guard on how to decline advances from young brothas.

Bottomline it's nigga season if you don't know yet,the goal is to divide,conquer and destroy. You can see the same thing with the welfare system which is by design to break up families and discourage marriage. If you are a black woman on welfare and you want benefits you can't have a man or be married or they cut most benefits off. They promote broken and dysfunctional families which is the nucleus/strength of any community. Different game same goal,wake up nigga youtube maafa21!!!
Click to expand...

So True, I had to pick up my 17 yr old cousin from a party Saturday night. I got there early so I had to wait for 15 minutes. Roles have reversed big time too. The girls were chasing the guys. My lil cousin had 6 phone numbers and he didnt ask for one. Girls today have no sexual inhibitions either. They'll perform sex acts and record it on their cell phone like it's nothing. Check out hoodamateurs.com(lol) sometimes. It must be fun to be a young black male. Unfortunately like you said, it has affected R&B. I have always maintained that music reflects a time period in life. Why sing about love when casual sex is so easy to obtain these days. As far as the social welfare system, there's a great documentary on Gangs in LA and it talks about how after WWII ended many responsible Black men lost their shipyards jobs. Women had to apply for welfare and the only way a woman could qualify is if there was no man in the house thus forcing men to abandon their families.
 
Last edited:
there's still good R&B being made, but it's not selling like it use to and some DJs are sleeping on it and not playing it on the radio. I think its sad that Sam Smith is the closet thing to R&B or Soul in the top 10 of the Billboard 100, and he's from Europe, lol. He is pretty dope though.

I started back buying music as the quality started to get better, just to show support for it.
 
Last edited:
When white artists started making it better. Justin Timberlake stuck to R&B when Chris brown and usher were doing EDM records. R&b not progressive lyrically. Same stuff every song and now all the black R&B artist say more curse words than the rappers. No love in the music no vulnerability everybody's so cool and hey f*ck my girl in every song. Boring.
 
lateef7842 said:
This is simple; Hip-hop killed R&B. R&B acts got sooo thirsty to shine they forgot what made the genre great and tried to be Hip-hop, R&B thugs. R&B been horrible since the early 90's; period.

Most 90's R&B acts were little more than producer driven vehicles for hits and nothing more. No bands. Just four or five guys on stage singing off key to tracks. No showmanship. That worked for Hip-hop but was horrible for R&B. Part of what made old school R&B great were the live shows. Cats would have seriously banging live shows that were unique and polished. They didn't look like they just walked up on stage from off the street and decided they want to try their hand at giving a show. In the 90's R&B acts officially became a waste of money to go see for the most part. Plus, everyone used the same 3 or so producers so they all sounded alike. No imagination, no innovation and a serious lack of chops.

Sure, Neo Soul was poppin' for a minute but that shit would put you to sleep. Plus, they were trying to capture something that had been done better 15 - 20 years prior. Unless you were in you're prime in the 70's you are only going to make poor representation of that kind of Soul music. Shit bored me to tears.

And, don't let me get started on the damn near 25 years of Micheal Jackson wannabes we've had in R&B. Every male R&B act recycles the same MJ moves. ****, Nigga, pick up a damn instrument! Try to at least to do some different shit.

When R&B cats decide to start blazing their own way instead of following Hip-hop, the genre will become great again.
Click to expand...
Neo-Soul doesn't really sound like a 70's pastiche though.
A lot of Neo-Soul from my own observations is a clear attempt
at adding in new influences (like Hip Hop style approach to rhythm)
with the old (more complex harmony, more of a focus on instrumentation etc.)
 
Last edited:
The 90s era is what killed R&B/soul for good. Artist's were no longer using instruments, the amount of sampling they were doing, adding rap music to their genre and even r&b artists were doing rap lyrics, the lyrical content was a mess.

90s R&B was when it died. If you want real R&b? Stick with the 70s.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top