He was out when it was a saturation of r&b/pop artists that were trying to latch on to any style of music that would fit, in 2000/2001 was a transitional period for r&b music since you could do the Backstreet Boys thing, the Usher stance, the Maxwell sound, or the R.Kelly sound, and 75% of the time it was already 10 other artists doing the same thing in each catagory so it was how strong could you ride their coat tails to get some shine.