From what I know, R&B was always a music for the Youth before Rap came in the 80's...even though it's probably always been artists more aimed at kids vs the adults.

Once Rap came in, the NJS type R&B came to appeal to the kids, while the older "AC" artists were aimed towards adults.

Once NJS died in 92-93, there was an entire wave of R&B that came in, which was strongly Rap influenced, and this appealed to the youth.

By the late 90's, this same style R&B was still dominant with the youth. Neo Soul came in strong around 99-2000, and with that, the 14-21 crowd wasn't all the way engaged with it, but they were moderate fans. That age group was still more into the R&B that came from Monica, Brandy, Usher, Destiny's Child, and even those who straddled the Neo Soul line like Donell Jones.

By 2005....things were starting to switch up. A lot of R&B party songs had much more Rap production, meaning not even the hybrid type beats like a Mariah "Fantasy" or "This is how we do it" which were still pretty Rap based....but we got the Lil Jon type tracks like Brooke Valentine "Girlfight" which was essentially just "Blow the whistle"...or a Cherish "Do it"...or Ciara "Oh" and "Goodies."

I feel like the last time we really got true R&B songs that got major love from the Youth and Mainstream were 2011...with tracks like "Adorn" and "Love on top" but even those were scarce.

And I look back to 2009, and realize that Drake has had a HUGE huge impact, to the point that even he's the reason that the Youth no longer goes for what's traditionally seen as R&B. He actually filled that void...young teenage girls will always love music that speaks to them, but they don't demand the traditional elements that us music heads enjoy. Damn near all the commercial R&B I hear now has some Drake in it.

Bryson Tiller "Don't" - Tory Lanez "Say it" - both songs are strongly Drake influenced...and I thought it was hilarisad that Tory had never heard of Brownstone or "If you love me." Eric Bellinger still can't succeed for anything, but a lot of his music is Drake influenced as well.