Continuing this post series I have on R&B's disappearance from the mainstream, The Atlantic scathingly reviews Brandy's new album, longs for Afrodisiac, and muses, in the inspiration for the title of this post, "that contemporary R&B doesn't have any mechanism whereby radio divas can leverage critical cred to turn themselves into indie darlings the way, for example, country star Ricky Skaggs turned himself into a bluegrass performer once upon a time."

Full article: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/10/brandy-and-the-sad-fate-of-pop-stars-who-take-a-chance-and-then-retreat/263659/

Where's Old Pro? This is a fascinating take on the fate of R&B singers. One of his arguments in my earlier post was that R&B/soul singers nowadays see the ability to go an indie route and see significant success. Is that really true?

Go Smack yourself and then apologize to your hand for looking stupid - Case_One

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The problem is that "indie R&B" is truly indie--thus obscure and low-rent--unlike "indie rock" which is more of a hip affectation.

But yeah... it's mostly true. R&B is too tied into the industry. It's hard to imagine being an R&B star without the glossy video, slick production, pricey photo shoot. Which is probably a big part of why R&B has suffered so much in the general scaling-back of the music industry.

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the smoke, the jackie wilson dancing & skinny/shiny suit, the overall affectation of it...seemed to really run counter to the music itself. it's rare that the R&B singer is ever positioned as anything other than a "pop star" in terms of success ('cept maybe alicia keys and/or john legend).

this seems to relate to your comments. i have more thoughts but i have to collect them in a coherent manner.

Go Smack yourself and then apologize to your hand for looking stupid - Case_One

http://i54.tinypic.com/nxros2.jpg

>But yeah... it's mostly true. R&B is too tied into the
>industry. It's hard to imagine being an R&B star without the
>glossy video, slick production, pricey photo shoot. Which is
>probably a big part of why R&B has suffered so much in the
>general scaling-back of the music industry.

Nothing wrong with all the above as long as there are good songs and a the artist can sing

As far as indie R&B there is Eric Roberson, Foreign Exchange (Nicolay, Zo and Phonte),Yazarah, Rahshan Patterson Even though she is on a major Erykah, Dwele (not sure what label he is on I don't bother to look at that on the cd's since it is in a microscopic font) have the indie ethic as well as Jill. Just heard the new Vivian Green and it's excellent.

i mean stylistically, not in terms of obscurity

.

but keep doin your thang

But I think the difference might be that they started out that way from the gate... But can Tank or Kelly Price or Ashanti make the jump from more "traditional" R&B (LOL @ me calling 90s R&B traditional) audience to that kind of recognition?

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

it seems that there's an ability for some...let's call them legacy R&B artists lol, cuz traditional is def the wrong word...to go the indie route and make a living from touring. i *think* so, but i'm not sure.

i go back to the recent R&B Divas show. faith is apparently still a successful touring artist? but there's, as you said initially, a patina of low-rent and obscurity to her continued success...and the other women seem to be either unsuccessful or out of the industry entirely. a pair of great vocal talents like syleena johnson or keke wyatt...neither is likely to ever have a radio hit again. ever. and wyatt is just 30. is there space for them to do something other than beg for a cast-off beat from the underdogs and hope for a career at adult R&B radio? or can they do something else?

Go Smack yourself and then apologize to your hand for looking stupid - Case_One

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SUCCESSFULLY?! WHERE DEY DO DAT?
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"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."
A PHASE!!

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HOLLA BACK WHEN GAGA DROP THAT FOLK ACOUSTIC EP!!

HONESTLY I AIN'T EVEN READ THE ARTICLE!! MY HEAD GOT STUCK TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHEN BRANDY TRIED TO GO INDIE!! INDIE INDIE INDIE!! WHAT THE HELL DO THAT MEAN IN REFERENCE TO R&B? OH YEAH FRANK OCEAN AND THE WEEKND!! SO BRANDY NEED DRUG REFS AND ISH? MORE PADS!!!?

SERIOUSLY THOUGH LET'S NOT PRETEND THAT ANY ALTERNATE BRANDY WAS TRYING TO DO WAS SOME SINCERE EFFORT TO MAKE MUSIC REFLECTIVE OF BLAH BLAH BLAH INSTEAD OF A FAILED ATTEMPT TO STAY 'RELEVANT' AND FOLLOW THE TRENDS!! R&B HAS MADE IT'S NAME POST WHAT LATE 70'S TRYING TO FOLLOW TRENDS!! AND THEN THEY FALL BACK TO WELL LET'S TAKE IT BACK TO THE ROOTS BS!! GOING INDIE = STAYING RELEVANT AND MOST ARTISTS WHO DO THAT ACROSS GENRES USUALLY FAIL BECAUSE THEIR HEART (AND TALENT USUALLY) IS ONLY HALF IN IT!!!

BUT THAT POINTS TO THE OVERALL PROBLEM WITH BLACK FOLK IN MUSIC!! THEY WHOLE SHIT IS BASED ON THIS 'RELEVANT" SCHTICK!! THAT'S WHAT DRIVES THEM!! ASK THEM TO MAKE THAT MUSIC TAT THEY REALLY FEEL AND THEY'LL DRAW A BLANK PROMPTING FOR WHAT IT IS THAT YOU FEEL AS A REF POINT!! OHHHHH YOU LIKE FOUR ON THE FLOOR!! ME TOO!!! I CAN DO THAT WATCH!!! AND....FAIL!! PARTICULARLY WHEN STACKED UP AGAINST THEIR EARLY CAREER WHEN THERE WAS STILL A SEMBLANCE OF THEM DOING THE MUSIC THEY LIKED WHICH IS WHY PEOPLE LIKED THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!
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"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." © Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."
A PHASE!!

>HOLLA BACK WHEN GAGA DROP THAT FOLK ACOUSTIC EP!!

http://www.discogs.com/Lady-GaGa-The-Cherrytree-Sessions/release/1671065 ?

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"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." © Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."
A PHASE!!

please say more. it's useful to this post.

Go Smack yourself and then apologize to your hand for looking stupid - Case_One

http://i54.tinypic.com/nxros2.jpg

And played bluegrass for years and years with some pretty famous acts before he ever charted a country hit. So it's pretty ignorant to write that he "turned himself into a bluegrass performer." I mean, he turned himself into a bluegrass performer at age, like, 5. He's from Bumfuck, Kentucky. That's what they play.

A correct way of thinking about his career would be that mainstream country was a relatively short blip in a long and storied bluegrass career.

All of which makes it hard to take this writer seriously.

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The writer makes an interesting point about R&B acts being placed in a box and being trapped by the commercial bottom line.....But he's picking on the wrong artist...That new Brandy album is pretty good...

GOAT of his era......long live Prince.....God is alive....

pretty damn good. That review is puzzling.

FRANK OCEAN OR ME'SHELLE N'DEGEOCELLO?

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"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."
A PHASE!!

_______________________________________
When discourse of Blackness is not connected to efforts to promote collective black self determinism
it becomes simply another recourse appropriated by the colonizer

http://hardboiledbabesanddarkchocolate.tumblr.co

Go Smack yourself and then apologize to your hand for looking stupid - Case_One

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expression particular to it.

the R&B ones won't work in and indie context and it wouldn't be difficult to see

Afkap mentioning the high glam of R&B suffering in the downsizing of major labels is an example.

_______________________________________
When discourse of Blackness is not connected to efforts to promote collective black self determinism
it becomes simply another recourse appropriated by the colonizer

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>the R&B ones won't work in and indie context and it wouldn't
>be difficult to see

from what i've read she broke records with her EP re: sales for an unsigned artist
she just got signed a few days ago to altavoz (sp?) for distribution
and she's hype about it. not sure how big of a deal it is in the grand scheme

not sure if i'm on topic tho i didn't read the article lol

www.royallegacy.org
http://therapfest.com/up-next-artists/

my boy rides HARD for dawn richard, disturbingly so lol

is she doing R&B or dance music tho? it seemed more like the latter from the singles & videos i've heard post-DDM.

Go Smack yourself and then apologize to your hand for looking stupid - Case_One

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I think he partially has it but doesn't really do a full discussion of the fate of R&B as a genre.


**********
"naive as the dry leaves on the ground looking past the trees to the blue sky asking 'why me?'" -Blu

I nominate Steve Malkmus. Teach him a couple dance moves....teach him to cock an eyebrow while he points to a young lady in the audience. Let's see where it will go.

Either that, or they have R&B influence without R&B cred (eg Kindness)

But can a true-blue R&B SANGER get that big indie love?

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

is this ironic?

twin sister
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eeZnLX_XBM

as for

>But can a true-blue R&B SANGER get that big indie love?

i don't know, can they get any love anywhere?

does frank ocean fit that bill?

SO I INTRODUCED A CO WORKER TO JAMIE WOON LAST YEAR!! HER COMMENT WAS LIKE OOOOOOHHHHHH I LIKE THIS!!! I NEVER REALLY LIKED R&B BUT NOW ALL THE COOL GUYS ARE DOING IT....!!

AND SCENE!!!

(JAMIE WOON IS A GOOD EXAMPLE BTW BUT IT'S STILL FAUX SOUL BUT SO IS BRANDY TO ME!! *SHRUG*)
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"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." © Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."
A PHASE!!

what you think of miguel?

in the MUSIC

but (and I hope I am not splitting hairs with this) the question is about R&B SINGERS

(I like the Twin Sister, though)

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

the 'indie' r&b stuff that's around seems to be contrasting r&b-influenced music with thin voices over the top.

but where are the 'sangers', in any case?

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

But they're success is still in the indie market.

Are any of them getting play on actual rnb stations or charts? Not meant to be rhetorical, I really don't know.

Are traditional rnb listeners heralding any of these indie artists incorporating elements of rnb into their act?

>Are traditional rnb listeners heralding any of these indie
>artists incorporating elements of rnb into their act?

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

LOL

Raphael Saadiq is trying it, i think. except he's still signed to a major. but he stopped trying for radio hits yrs ago, it seems.

what's Me'Shell doing? she was never a radio star though.

fuck you.

Ray Ray was put out on his own label, flopped, and he went running back.

___________________________
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she was on a major for quite a while and has since become more and more indie and insular.

if you're to believe what she said in her behind the music episode. personally it's my favorite brandy effort; but i think her dismissal of the album lends credibility to the writer's argument that she's simply chasing a hit/relevance rather than artistry. not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that. though the article's misguided to believe that afrodisiac was anything more than just another stab at pop radio; as if timbaland was an unknown commodity who wasn't concurrently making stars out of nelly furtado and timberlake.

http://twitter.com/Menphyel7


"F you Im better in tune with the Infinite"

which isn't to say the music was a failure, just that it didn't seem to connect with the target audience of indie hipsters and expand his base beyond eclectic r&b/hip-hop/jazz heads like it should have (https://www.kexp.org/live/liveperformance.aspx?rId=32391 kinda crystalized this for me). it still puzzles me.

and then hell be okay

or maybe play up the more ODB aspects of his personality for extra hipster-love

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Akvf1uc46pY

cmon

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

im right. youre wrong. bin wins...again


do or die

the ones she had before she became an indie darling.

b/c that's what the post is about.

we'll wait.

fuck you.

radio hits & indie darling are 2 diametrically opposite things


do or die

that's the point, homie.

R&B stars are unable to shift gears and become indie darlings.

that's what the post is about.

but yes, Sharon and the Dap Kings are an indie act and also loved by critics.

fuck you.

not R&B stars becoming indie darlings..why would a cat getting regular radio play care abt getting a write up on pitchfork? thats counter productive

but yes r&b can be some indie shit...see daptones

ie i am right. you? wrong.

bw, a


do or die

The suggestion being that they were mainstream R&B singers (which Sharon Jones never was) before becoming indie darlings

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

im trying to parse out what the hell yall talking abt here

sharon jones emphatically was an r&b singer BEFORE she got on w/ daptone

daptone whole style is 'r&b indie darling'

so...yes she was in fact...an r&b singer who turned herself into an indie darling

can we admit the Black man is god now & KIM?

She was never a professional R&B singer before that.

In essence, she was a Daptone "creation" fashioned to lend authenticity to their hipster, retro-funk.

She was made specifically to appeal to the "indie" crowd. She NEVER had a following amongst rank & file black people who listen to R. Kelly, Kelly Price, Frankie Beverly & Maze or Jeffrey Osborne.

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

why would someone w/ a following who listens to r kelly ie on the radio...be on pitchfork?

they already made it to their core audience, they dont need pitchfork

daptones came from the opposite direction & are now making prolly the most pure r&b out there

r&b before they become indie darlings.

admit your wrong & ill stop the beating


do or die

>why would someone w/ a following who listens to r kelly ie on
>the radio...be on pitchfork?

Because hits dry up after a while. Enthusiasm fades. Audiences move on.

We all know who Deborah Cox or Tamia are; they've had hits. They have something of a "following." But does the contemporary R&B market want to hear a new CD from them? No. They probably would even have a hard time getting booked at EssenceFest.

Do they have the ability to turn it around, move away from the mainstream R&B audience and be more embraced by the Pitchfork crowd the way that, say, Kool Keith did?

That is the question.

>daptones came from the opposite direction & are now making
>prolly the most pure r&b out there

Did Dap-Kings ever have a mainstream R&B following? Or did they start out as some hipster shit to begin with?

I'd like to bring up the point that 10 years ago, AFKAP was the very first person on this board to post about Daptone, about Sharon Jones & the Dap-Dippers, all of that... and y'all cussed me out calling it some white boy shit, some wannabe funk, stiff, phony dinosaur, white negro fetishism, etc.

and now a decade later, it's funny to me that cats is saying "This is the real thing!"

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

is that stuff still in the archives?

only found this one:
http://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=17&topic_id=27692&mesg_id=27692&listing_type=search#27766

>
>I'd like to bring up the point that 10 years ago, AFKAP was
>the very first person on this board to post about Daptone,
>about Sharon Jones & the Dap-Dippers, all of that... and y'all
>cussed me out calling it some white boy shit, some wannabe
>funk, stiff, phony dinosaur, white negro fetishism, etc.
>
>and now a decade later, it's funny to me that cats is saying
>"This is the real thing!"
>
>

POEM-CEES
KOKAYI/CAESARZ
SPP WAXWORKS (DC)

THAYLOBLEU: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=701fChgN9H4

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

When you finish I'll have a custom-made, fresh L waiting for you.

fuck you.

if that's the point...it's pretty uncontroversial.

I mean, there's no indie artists who have 'changed gears' and become darlings to the rnb market either. They may have added rnb elements to their sound....but they're still selling records to the indie market....not the rnb one.

Bless your heart.

fuck you.

rock with me on this for a minute.

whenever one discusses indie R&B acts, one name looms over the discussion: eric roberson. he's become a musical force despite not having had a major label deal since the early 1990's, strictly off the strength of word of mouth and incessant touring. his music has become less interesting over the years, but there's no doubt that he's "made it" his own way.

what're the lessons from that? how'd he gain that sort of credibility? in the early 2000's, seemingly everyone's introduction to him was the osunlade remix of "change for me." and he's stayed relatively near the top ever since. was that transmitted via blogs and social media? i'm asking real questions, not rhetorical ones, by the way.

i'm not sure that he was championed by any tastemaker site -- not even this one, when it was a true tastemaker site (and by "this one," i mean "the lesson," not okayplayer writ large). or was he?

and if he was, where are the sites with the power to be tastemakers for R&B acts nowadays? soultracks? some of the sites i might think of still cling to the idea of neo-soul or champion new, wan material from legacy artists, instead of checking for the fresh and new. and really, i can't name any that has the reach of a pitchfork or, sh!t, a hotnewhiphop.com -- and without those type of sites in this age of social media, it's hard to gain cred. nobody's reading vibe or the source anymore.

i hope i left something in this for folks to respond to.

Go Smack yourself and then apologize to your hand for looking stupid - Case_One

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Does R&B singers transitioning to dance music (ie soulful house and the like, not David Guetta) count?

It's not the same crowd as "indie" for sure, but it's a similar dynamic...

Not that many successfully do this either, anyway. Jody Watley seems to have done okay with it, though.

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

>Does R&B singers transitioning to dance music (ie soulful
>house and the like, not David Guetta) count?

NAH SON!! THAT SHIT IS ATTEMPTS TO CROSSOVER TO HIT ON THE CHARTS!!

>It's not the same crowd as "indie" for sure, but it's a
>similar dynamic...

NOT AT ALL IMO!!

>Not that many successfully do this either, anyway. Jody Watley
>seems to have done okay with it, though.

THING TODAY IS THAT NOBODY IS TAKING WHAT THEY HAVE FROM R&B INTO WHATEVER THEY ARE MOVING INTO!! SO IF IT'S DANCE MUSIC THEY DON'T BRING WITH THEM THE HOUSE DIVA PIPES THAT COME FROM R&B THAT WOULD MAKE IT COUNT!! INSTEAD THEY AUTOTUNE AND BUFF FX THE FUC OUT OF EVERYTHING WHICH SEPARATES IT FURTHER FROM R&B!!

BUT NONE OF THAT IS "INDIE"!! WE'RE CONFUSING USES OF THE TERM HERE!! OF COURSE THERE ARE INDEPENDENT R&B ARTISTS< BUT THOSE ARTISTS FAN BASES AREN'T WHAT WOULD BE REFERRED TO AS "INDIE DARLINGS"!! BASICALLY THE QUESTION IS WHAT NEW R&B ARTISTS DO THE INDIE DARLINGS HAVE IN THEIR COLLECTION!! THE ANSWER IS RHINNA BUT THAT'S NOT HER GOING INDIE THAT'S JUST THEIR GUILTY PLEASURE MUSIC!!!

THERE IS NOTHING FASCINATING ABOUT R&B ARTISTS TO INDIE DARLINGS!! IT'S A GENRE WHO'S BEST IS BEHIND IT AND AS SUCH THERE'S NO SHOCK OF THE NEW AND SO ONLY AS YOU'D PUT IT THE IRONY OF THOSE OUTSIDE OF THE PERCEIVED COMMUNITY DOING R&B EVEN RAISES AN EYE TO THEM!! SO YOU GET MAYER HAWTHORNES AND TO THE SAME EXTENT WINEHOUSE'S!!! BUT THERE'S ONLY SO MUCH DEMAND!! THEY ONLY NEED A COUPLE!! AS SUCH THE MARKET WOULDN'T EVEN BE INTERESTED IN AN R&B ARTIST PANDERING TO THEM FOR THE MOST PART!!!

I HAVEN'T SEARCHED BUT WHILE THERE WAS PROBABLY INDIE DARLING COVERAGE OF D's "1000 DEATHS" WHEN IT DROPPED ACTUAL INTEREST IN IT... NOT SO MUCH!!


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Big PEMFin H & z's
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"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." © Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."
A PHASE!!

on her new album 'girl on fire'.

i've only heard the salaam remi produced 'girl on fire' ft nicki minaj

which is cool. you can't go too wrong with billy squier's big beat.

that's not gonna do it, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k199nUJiPS8

if not for my 'retirement' i'd be 15-20 posts deep in this bitch already. let's see if I can sum this all up as quickly as possible.

>Where's Old Pro? This is a fascinating take on the fate of R&B
>singers. One of his arguments in my earlier post was that
>R&B/soul singers nowadays see the ability to go an indie route
>and see significant success. Is that really true?

Brandy isn't exactly the type of act I was referring to... in fact she's pretty much the exact opposite of the type of artist I was thinking of when I made that statement. She's simply a vehicle and those types of acts don't fare well at all outside the mainstream. My comment was more about creator types... the Mint Conditions, Eric Bennetts, Rahsaan Pattersons & Eric Robersons of the world... also the 'new school' house/electro acts that are either from over seas or just get more run there... Joey Negro, Cool Million, Sam Sparro... also the electro funk inspired cats like Dam-Funk & Jimmy Edgar. The stuff I think of when I talk about R&B is far broader than the stuff those of you who came of age in the 90s think of... we're closer to how it was in the 80s truthfully.

AFKAP's comment drives home this point

"R&B is too tied into the industry. It's hard to imagine being an R&B star without the glossy video, slick production, pricey photo shoot. Which is probably a big part of why R&B has suffered so much in the general scaling-back of the music industry."

This is the 90s tinted prism I'm talking about... before the marriage of R&B to Hip-Hop this wasn't the case at all. R&B/Funk acts were lucky to get a video at all let alone a glossy one

http://youtu.be/-1YjmXSyHa8

http://youtu.be/CjeLT2mpBLg

http://youtu.be/qchPLaiKocI

I mean you got a stage and them MAYBE some effects laid over the top and that was your video. So yeah, an act like Brandy is pretty much SOL when you strip all that away... there's nothing she does that can't be done just as well by a younger & fresher face. Brandy is about as vital to the success of R&B as a razor is to a fruitful business meeting... so you forgot your razor at home and you need to shave... just get another one.
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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

I ask this in light of that NY Mag Grizzly Bear piece from a few weeks back. Few of these big indie bands are raking in that much dough.

They will do well.

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this muthafucka musta been following my tweets..

I literally said that if Afrodisiac or Kiley Dean's Simple Girl dropped today they would be heralded on some female PBR&B shit...

I mean they were the blueprints for FS/LS And Nelly Furtado's timbo album. Kanye records aside the Brandy record was pretty forward thinking. sampling ColdPplay in 2004 and shit.

Anyway..

I actually don't agree with the sentiment. I think it can happen... and could've happened with Brandy if she hung out with Solange more. It doesn't matter if it's a Swedish alternative pop hit making team or jerkins and co. She could've re-invented herself in a much more interesting way.

"Indie" is a faux label. Robyn is on a major, lana del rey is on a major MIguel, The Weeknd, Gnarls barkley etc... The difference is they were able to create a level of "credibility" that people gravitate towards.

Frank Ocean became as big as he has BECAUSE he was on a major. They were able to react to blog love immediately and get his records in rotation.

Brandy could've done it... She is just boring ol Brandy though... she even brought back the Moesha Braids for the fucking video.. W T F

Double 0
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The success of Motown and Stax made it all possible. Major labels eventually wanted a cut of what countless independent labels wanted and originally were clueless about. Look at Capitol Records' roster. They made a success out of Kyu Sakamoto's "Ue o Muite Arukō", which they renamed after the one dish Capitol Records figured Americans would understand. The damn song has nothing to do with food, it's a song of misery and pity and that became a novelty. "Ha ha, Sukiyaki, we cannot understand what he is saying, but it sounds so cute" and the damn song went to #1. That was pop.

Now, that's not to take away from the influence of doo-wop, but in terms of modern day soul and R&B, all of it had its origins on indie labels. It was considered a "rural" music, something more sophisticated than "raw blues" but something you could dance to, even if that dancing meant possible "interracial relationships" (that was a legitimate fear).

There is no reason why a soul artist/singer could not get attention by being indie. In 2012, look at what has become a hit this year. There's more of an outside influence than ever. Yes, you still have to have financial backing in order to create the publicity and hype, and what does pass as hits are nothing more than "the machine" working for you (i.e. "themselves") but if people actually paid attention to the music, showed a liking to the music and stopped making it as if it's not "part of the norm", I mean c'mon. It seems if it's soul in 2012, it's closer to jazz, which means it's closer to smooth jazz, which means it might have a sax or trumpet in it and it's "old people music". Old music creator John Legend was the guest on a Food Network show, so something is working for him.

The powers that be don't want to sell quality music, and fans aren't being vocal enough to say "I want good music". They keep on delivering the same monotonous shit over and over. Sadly, if "good music" did make it through, then it would lead to a string of monotonous Xerox-soul, but one has to reveal its diversity, show that it's much more than what is being presented. Otherwise, its vibrancy will be lost.







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throughout this post. it makes this interesting discussion too muddled for me.

indie to imply a white rockist following or appreciation
is not the same as indie to imply actually on an independent label, no radio hits and using touring as a primary means of income and marketing.

while there is some overlap between the two, it is possible to be one and not the other.

is there a circuit for independent-label modern R&B artists? Not really. As has already been mentioned this has a lot to do with the poppy glossiness that has become part and parcel of R&B. If you are black and have a voice, you are better of going the jazz, gospel or house route. there is a way to eat going down that road but it's not glamorous.

there is something about R&B that attracts people who want to be stars very very badly. so that even when they are going the indy route, they will never see it as the end goal. the genre just does not attract envelope-pushers in my opinion. imagine if Bilal had just been a regular R&B singer, i don't think he'd have a career today.

>there is something about R&B that attracts people who want to
>be stars very very badly. so that even when they are going the
>indy route, they will never see it as the end goal. the genre
>just does not attract envelope-pushers in my opinion.

*wishes his old "R&B Singers Have Got to be the Dumbest, Most Shallow Motherfuckers in the Music Industry" post had been archived*

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

because if R&B singer pushes the envelope just a little, the core R&B audience may not consider it R&B. like people arguing whether Frank Ocean / the weeknd is really R&B. fair question but the frequency of it just makes me know the genre is not built for experimentation.

> the
>genre
>>just does not attract envelope-pushers in my opinion.
>
>*wishes his old "R&B Singers Have Got to be the Dumbest, Most
>Shallow Motherfuckers in the Music Industry" post had been
>archived*
every mainstream genre has a somewhat healthy "underground" scene except for R&B. always been worrisome to me. where does innovation come from in this genre? mainly by grafting onto hip-hop?

archived i think

Is R&B an inferior genre?

http://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=17&topic_id=39491&mesg_id=39491&listing_type=search



i just want somebody to explain to me why they listen to it tho

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When discourse of Blackness is not connected to efforts to promote collective black self determinism
it becomes simply another recourse appropriated by the colonizer

http://hardboiledbabesanddarkchocolate.tumblr.co

http://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=17&topic_id=12450&mesg_id=12450&listing_type=search

_______________________________________
When discourse of Blackness is not connected to efforts to promote collective black self determinism
it becomes simply another recourse appropriated by the colonizer

http://hardboiledbabesanddarkchocolate.tumblr.co

Not the general idea, but some of the examples I used to illustrate it.

I think the post about R&B singers being dumb and shallow was deleted by fireOK, though... I remember her taking personal offense at it.

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http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/287/6/c/the_wire_lineup__huge_download_by_dennisculver-d30s7vl.jpg
The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

and break down the genre completely

signifiers,world view, common motifs etc

but not sure if i've subjected myself to enough r&b to do it properly

_______________________________________
When discourse of Blackness is not connected to efforts to promote collective black self determinism
it becomes simply another recourse appropriated by the colonizer

http://hardboiledbabesanddarkchocolate.tumblr.co

(though I probably won't be able to participate today)

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http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/287/6/c/the_wire_lineup__huge_download_by_dennisculver-d30s7vl.jpg
The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

like georgia anne muldrow, tiombe lockheart, donnie, dudley perkins and so on. i mean, nina sky are 'indie' now too but not being on a major alone does not mean someone is making indie R&B.