How Rap Obliterated R&B
The answer’s simpler than you think
Recently we tackled the question “Why Don’t Black Brit R&B Artist Blow-up in the US Anymore,” but we have to be honest…R&B has been gone — period — for a long time, wiped off the face of the Earth by Rap Music.
It took some time, a couple of decades perhaps, but Rap has developed like a cancerous growth consuming most of Black music. R&B was its first meal.
Rap Music’s growth in R&B started off small and barely detectable but over the past fifteen years has grown to malignant forms. There are at least four factors that have played a role in the dissolution of Rhythm & Blues and maybe we’ll find more along the way. But first, let’s go back, Jimmy Castor, “Troglodyte” style.
To get to the root of the first group to really bring that Rap/R&B sound, we have to go back two years before that group’s first single hit the charts. We have to go back to Michael Jonzun starting a group up in Beantown, Boston USA.
As far as I can remember, tons of outer space, robot, electro songs came out after “Planet Rock.” The year was 1982. One of our favorite electro songs from that year was the Jonzun Crew’s “Pak Jam.” Unlike most of the others, “Pak Jam” sounded nothing like “Planet Rock” and, according to Micheal Jonzun, “Pak Jam” (formerly known as “Pak Man”) was released BEFORE Afrika Bambattaa’s seminal track. Whatever the case, “Pak Man” sold over 10,000 records and Tom Silverman, president of Tommy Boy Records caught wind of it, signed the Jonzun Crew, re-released “Pak Man” as “Pak Jam” and that’s how we heard it.
Listening to “Pak Jam” or “Space Cowboy” you may not be able to get where this is going. But if you listen to the first few seconds of this song…maybe you will:
No? Ok.
If you listen to “Brother to Brother” also on Sugar Hill Records, perhaps you will.
No? Ok.
Let’s fast forward a bit then.
November 15, 1981. The Strand Theatre. Dorchester, Mass. Five young men have worked through several rounds of a local talent show and made it to the finals. Their song to end all songs — The Jackson’s “Stop, the Love You Save.” They’re good. But only second place good, which, incidentally turns out to be good enough. (I’m still trying to find out who won first place.)
Maurice Starr, brother of Michael Jonzun and co-conspirator in the Hollywood Talent Night Search show, was looking for an act to develop and found the perfect group with the young brothers who were modeled after The Jackson Five, New Edition.
The first song they released, “Candy Girl,” was a monster hit. They unleashed what became a NE trademark, the verse, chorus, verse, rap, chorus formula. Blondie had rapped in “Rapture” but this was real. If you were fortunate enough, you saw the “Candy Girl” video and watched the five young brothers from Boston display some cold popping moves. We knew they were b-boys.
New Edition toured off that song and followed it with “Jealous Girl” and “Popcorn Love.”
Released on Starr’s longtime collaborator Arthur Baker’s Streetwise Records, Starr and Jonzun incorporated some of the same Minimoog handclaps that they used on those earlier Sugar Hill Recordings. They also used a Hip-Hop beat and for the first time, we felt like we had a group that was ours. (The members of New Edition were the same age as my older brother and their music sounded like the music we were growing to love — rap)
The first shot was fired and like when Gavrilo Princip shot down Franz Ferdinand, it would be the start of a battle between Rap and R&B, the beginnings were almost impossible to trace, but the results were clearly evident.
When my parents were teens, Motown was taking back the mainstream charts from the insurgent British invasion. The Supremes may have been the top act at the time but Motown had several top ten singles in the year of 1966. And if it wasn’t Motown it was Stax…or James Brown. Prior to that, my parent’s music was what people now call “Doo-Wop.” Because of all of that, their criteria for what was good music was very different than ours. (My dad once said, “I liked James Brown until he started with all that screaming.”)
My mom had a tolerance for early recorded rap. The backing tracks were familiar (“Good Times,” “Heartbeat” etc.) and every once in a while she could understand what they were saying. But after “Planet Rock,” she pretty much checked out. My dad NEVER liked rap. “Turn off that hip-hoppity be bop mess,” he would scream towards wherever he heard the DMX drum machine sound coming from.
Mainstream media considered recorded rap a fad and many industries types felt the same way. For the masses who tried to cash in on Disco, it had been a huge, fast-burning fire that flamed out just as fast and took many record labels with it. They saw the same elements in rap so media and the industry were leary to support it.
And that’s how Staten Island’s first popular group went from being the Force MC’s to the Force MD’s and a group that even my mom could support.
Perhaps you’ve done your due diligence and listened to every WHBI, World Famous Supreme Team Show that you could find online. If so, you’ve stumbled across the June 1982 show featuring Dr. Rock and the Force MC’s — Stevie D, Mercury, & Lord K-Won.
If you’re familiar with early 80s Hip-Hop, their routine is not far off from what was taking place (famously) in the Bronx, Harlem and throughout NYC’s Five Boroughs. While Dr. Rock cuts up some breakbeats, Stevie D, Mercury, & K-Won harmonize together using the melody of “Gonna Fly Now (the Rocky Balboa Theme)” before trading off rap verses.
The Force M.D.s are the fore fathers of all of them groups like Jodeci, Boys II Men you name it. They all heard the Force M.C.s.. We did a party up in Ossining and I took them and something happened with the lights or the equipment because cats were real shady back then. Force M.C.s rocked that joint with no music! Se’Divine, The Mastermind, World Famous Supreme Team Show
They were popular enough to do “the circuit:” Harlem World, T-Connection, The Roof Top, & The Disco Fever, yet they were still looked at as a “novelty” being from Staten Island. It was Stevie D’s other group, the Fantastic LD’s that changed that.
The Fantastic LD’s were Stevie D’s singing group and they were performing on the Staten Island Ferry for money, doing Michael Jackson songs (with Stevie D’s uncle, Jesse, handling the Michael Jackson bits), Elvis songs, and an array of others. Mr. Magic, then one of the most popular DJ’s in NYC, happened to be on the Ferry one day and was blown away. Mr. Magic called their music “Doo Wop Hip-Hop.”
Immediately, he insisted on bringing them to Tom Silverman, owner of Tommy Boy, for an audition.Tom Silverman LOVED them…loved them so much that he wanted to model them after his favorite group, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers. (Hence, the perms and the ‘F’ -lettered sweaters).
Rap was out. Silverman only wanted them to sing and didn’t even want them identified as MC’s and insisted they change their name. So The Force MC’s became The Force MD’s (for Musical Diversity).
Nonetheless, they kept their Hip-Hop edge. Keith LeBlanc (although only credited as arranger) was brought in, being Tommy Boy’s in-house producer and all. LeBlanc was formerly of Sugar Hill Records and had made his splash with “No Sell Out” where he sampled late Malcolm X lectures and put them over a DMX beat.
We heard the “Let Me Love You (Love Beats Version)” first. First thing you hear is that hard-hitting DMX and its trademarked claps. It fits into the 1984 mold of Hip-Hop mold of stripped down beats and lyrics.
We saw Shannon’s “Let the Music Play” (there was no such thing as freestyle yet) and Cherelle’s “I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On” as Hip-Hop, but that “Let Me Love You (Love Beats Version)” jawn, in essence, was a Hip-Hop song with singing. In my estimation, the first of it’s kind.
I can’t tell you how disappointed we were when we heard the original. We thought maybe the radio station remixed it. (That’s how we thought back then). The reality is Power 99 just made it a habit of playing the bonus 12" tracks. (I still hear the “Power…99 FM” announcement in my head whenever I hear the beginning of “Forgive Me Girl.” Reginald McKie, I’m sure you could bear me witness)
With New Edition and the Force MD’s you have two degrees of Sugar Hill Records (production-wise) separation and two groups growing up in a world where rap was becoming the language of the youth. Force MD’s were old enough to actually be a part of that first wave of rappers, hobnobbing with Cold Crush and the like, and New Edition were the first young group inspired by the movement.
Context is so important. Often times, when someone goes back to listen to a music from a bygone era, they have a hard time grasping the significance and impact that the music had on it’s time.
For me, it’s the Beach Boys. Try as I might, I can not put myself in the right frame of mind to understand how anyone was ever moved by them. I don’t even get their opus, Pet Sounds. I’m still trying.
Many young Black people won’t even do that. “Old school rap” (anything that exists before Jay Z was Jay Z) sounds too much like nursery rhymes to them. Because of that, they don’t understand why “Roxanne, Roxanne” was so large, had so many response records, and landed it’s producers, Full Force, their long sought after contract.
The half muscle-bound, brother/cousin band hit big with UTFO and that was large in the rap world but the song they put out in the summer of 1985 would do what “Roxanne, Roxanne” could never do — crossover.
Enough has been written about Lisa Lisa & The Cult Jam’s “I Wonder If I Take You Home” that I won’t go in great detail here. Just let it be known that whether it was the music video or a club, radio, cars, boom boxes, pool parties, BBQs, name the mid-80s platform or place, Lisa Lisa’s song was played there.
Although classified as freestyle, it was pure Hip-Hop to us.
When my older brother, Ade, saw the name Full Force on the charts at Sound Warehouse, he immediately put his order in.
“Alice, I Want You Just For Me” didn’t disappoint. Full Force were guaranteed to bring you harmonies and thumping beats…and there was scratching. Not to mention, they spoke our language. Their next single, “Unselfish Lover,” was my joint.
More of a Hip-Hop track than “Alice…” “Unselfish Lover’s” beat could have easily been a UTFO, “Split Personality” beat. The track is more paired down, no guitar, no faux horns, beats and bass and their tight harmonies.
New Edition were on their way to making a Christmas album which they would follow up with a 50s revival album. The Force MD’s were about to be knocking out ballads like “Tender Love” and becoming a respectable R&B group. So Full Force took up the slack on the East Coast with their blend of Hip-Hop and rap.
The West Coast would throw down their rod and the war would now become bicoastal.
White people! I know you may only know Club Nouveau from “Lean on Me.” That some of you consider the Bay Area group a “One-Hit Wonder.” You may notch up cool points for knowing the song though or it’s a fun joke for you and your friends to pick for karaoke night. But long before you were intoxicated singing the “We be jammin’ part,” Black folks were riding with the first three releases from Life, Love, & Pain. (note: the above is based on real life, after work experiences with fellow waiters and cooks from the early to mid 90s. You all may be a new liberated bunch who know absolutely nothing about Club Nouveau)
First song we heard was “Rumors.” That was the summer of 1986. The summer when there was the first signs of gangs in Denver. The summer where fights broke out at Juneteenth for the first time that I could remember, where an officer, Officer Tim Pulford, was shot. The summer before my freshman year in high school.
It may have not been on my playlist but one would have thought that the Timex Social Club was from Denver the way they held claim to it. The main reason was the synth-line was in the spirit of the funk records that people from California to Missouri grew up embracing. Timex Social Club was from the Bay Area and their sound was a distinct West Coast sound with a beat that made it Hip-Hop.
Then there was “Jealousy.” We couldn’t tell if it was an answer track or someone jumping on the coattails of the Timex Social Club (like the great Bobby Jimmy’s version, “Roaches”). To us, it was sub par to “Rumors.” “Rumors” beat was harder, the synth was funkier, and it seemed more polished. “Who the hell is this Club Nouveau?” We wondered.
The proof was in the pudding who was who and it was much later when we found out the origin of “Jealousy.”
The reality of the situation was “Rumors” was a success and on the strength of it, one of the leaders of Timex Social Club, Michael Thompson, signed a major deal without the backing and consent of the other members causing them to bolt and start their own band.
“Jealousy” was more than a direct response to the situation, in the spirit of Hip-Hop, it was really a dis track:
I tried to help some friends, to help themselves to get their lives intact
They came out spreading RUMORS (emphasis, my own) now I have to come out spreading facts
Let me tell you how it started and where it all began
I guess I was a fool to try and help my broke and SOCIAL friends
Knowing the reality of the situation gives the song more “UMPH.”
I’m not sure which single came out next but the next two singles made me a fan — “Situation No. 9” and in my opinion the group’s best recording, “Why You Treat Me So Bad.”
One (of) my favorite groups were Tears For Fears. The drums from our song ‘Why You Treat Me So Bad’ really came from the Tears For Fears song ‘Shout.’ I basically took a small part of that drum beat and created a portion of ‘Why You Treat Me So Bad.’ Jay King
“Why You Treat Me So Bad,” upon further listen, is the origin of the whole Bay Area sound. (and not just because the Luniz sampled it either) When Michael Marshall and Valerie Watson trade verses, the Juno 106 keyboard and claps are prominent, the beat is recessed, but when they go to the hook, the drums slam in. Take a listen to any Yay Area track now — it’s the same formula, except the claps are replaced by snaps and the drums are now, generally 808s. But it’s all there.
By the time “Lean on Me” dropped, Club Nouveau had already taken over from the Bay to the Mississippi. They may not have made any real noise again but two of their producers, the previously mentioned Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy, would take their Hip-Hop aesthetic to the next level. But back to that in a moment.
I’m going to be straight up. I’m so specific about what I consider New Jack Swing that I almost keep it exclusively to if there’s a “Yep Yep” and a Teddy Riley keyboard break that’s prompted by, “Yo’ Teddy” or “Teddy.” That’s how specific I am about what I consider New Jack Swing. I’m so specific that I almost discount some of Teddy’s own work that falls under 108 bpm. Straight up.
Show of hands who agree? Thanks Teddy.
When I read that critics call what Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis were doing on Janet Jackson’s “Control” album New Jack Swing, I really have to take a breather. And, again, this may just be my opinion and perceptual constancy, but I don’t ever remember anyone thinking of anything that Janet did as Hip-Hop. (Except when Q-Tip produced “Got to it’s Gone” but that would be eons later)
We thought Janet’s album was funky…but funky in the way the Gap Band or SOS or someone was funky. Not funky like this could be Hip-Hop funky. And to label it New Jack Swing…see the above paragraph.
Teddy Riley was a Hip-Hop producer. He’d produced “The Show” (which he didn’t take credit for), he also produced “Go See the Doctor,” and many other songs. So Riley had a rep. Plus, he was known in the club circuit having been out there since he was 9. This is where he met Johnny Kemp. And this is where he met Keith Sweat.
Keith Sweat, after loosing a talent show to Riley, came around where Teddy Riley stayed to “get that sound.” Riley insisted that he didn’t do R&B:
I had no formula. I had no plans to do R&B music. New Jack Swing would’ve been just rap if I didn’t get with Keith Sweat. Teddy Riley.
Sweat already had a record deal with Elektra so they quickly began recording in Riley’s first floor project apartment, often times with Sweat working out the melodies as Riley made the tracks. Sometimes, Keith Sweat would bring over their shared friend, Johnny Kemp, which ended up working out well for him.
Keith (Sweat) took me over to Teddy’s house and he didn’t stay very long. That very day, he gave me the track for ‘Just Got Paid’ and I completed the lyrics. The chorus was already done and the basic premise of the song was already there. It was just a matter of completing the verses. Johnny Kemp
Kemp’s version was just going to be the scratch track, or a demonstration of how the track could be sung. But Keith Sweat didn’t want it.
I was trying to incorporate some of the contemporary language that was going on at the time: ‘lookin’ fly’ and ‘the posse’ and all that. It was something he was working on with Keith and apparently Keith didn’t like it enough to put it on his record. I liked it enough to put it on mine. Johnny Kemp
I was finally old enough to go out…so long as my older brother went. And we went deep…at least for us. Me, my older brother, Sayyed Munajj and his older brother, our boy, Aiyetoro KMT, and my God brother Alejandro Muhammad, all piled on the Rough Tough and Dirty and rolled to a club called Gucci’s which was really a party thrown in a hotel. And that was the perfect setting to hear “I Want Her” and “Just Got Paid” for the first time.
“I Want Her” was released in September of 1987 and Kemp’s song, “Just Got Paid” came out in January of 1988 solidifying what I consider to be the blueprint for New Jack Swing. Again, see that paragraph up there.
Keith Sweat’s Make it Last Forever came out at the end of 87 and before the letters wore off the cassette, another project Teddy Riley had his hands in came out — In Effect Mode, Al B Sure’s debut album.
Uptown/MCA ran the summer of 88 after that. Guy, Teddy Riley’s group, after releasing “Groove Me,” (I remember us being blown away by the video)the self-titled album Guy dropped June 13, 1988. Two weeks later, Bobby Brown’s Don’t be Cruel and New Edition’s Heartbreak were released, further adding to the tapes that we had to lug around.
While Heartbreak was a more respectable New Edition, with them rocking suits and what not, Don’t Be Cruel was Bobby Brown’s “coming out” album. “Don’t Be Cruel” was hard…no question, but that Teddy Riley “My Prerogative” (we had some ‘Yep Yeps’ and a request for Teddy to “Kick it like this”) sent sales of Bobby B’s album soaring. Bobby Brown was the bad boy that Chris Brown wishes he could be.
These albums came to encapsulate my older Brother’s Senior Year in High School (what I like to call, My First Senior Year) and they were the sounds of the summer.
Albums by the Gyrlz (Love Me or Leave Me) and Today (Today) both were released in the Fall of 1988, both had sprinkles of Teddy Riley’s influence, and these albums kept our New Jack Swing appetite satiated.
Again, like Michael Jonzun/Maurice Starr, Keith LeBlanc, & Full Force, Teddy Riley had his start making Hip-Hop. What Teddy Riley did was with the times. Club music was popping, House was gaining steam, so he sped up the beats per minute and kept the Hip-Hop beat. Throw in a little vocoder, the Teddy special synth sauce, and you have New Jack Swing.
As we talked about in “Why Don’t Black Brit R&B Artists…” the Soul II Soul movement slowed the beats per minute down again, under the 100s and that was reflected in most R&B.
Out West, Foster & McElroy had finished up with Club Nouveau, helped longtime friends Toni! Tony! Tone! produce their first album which had hits like, “Hey Little Walter,” “Born Not to Know,” and our personal slow-tape favorite, “Not Gonna Cry for You,” and had secured a production deal.
And what they wanted to do was bring the “girl” group back; not just one lead singer and some back-up singers. No. They wanted a woman, super-group like if, “Gladys Knight, Diana Ross, Patti Labelle and Chaka Khan all in one group.” Initially they started out with the idea of three women, but in the open audition, four women (Cindy Herron, Maxine Jones, Dawn Robinson, & Terry Ellis) impressed them so much that they settled on four.
Let me tell you, when BET debuted the video, the next day it was everyone’s topic of conversation. And this is what we were blown away by: the intro…a cappella, these sisters brought The Miracles “Who’s Lovin’ You” back to life…they could SANG, their beauty…every member of En Vogue was gorgeous, and classy, and sexy…did I mention they could SANG, yeah, and the track…an R&B group, sampling James Brown in an era when every Hip-Hop artist was sampling James Brown…that was hard, and did I say that they could SANG…because they could.
The approach for their first album was much more of a raw, street approach. The grooves were a little bit more serious to me. To me, when we first did ‘Lies’ and ‘Hold On,’ I was thinking about making those tracks more Hip Hop sounding and a little bit grittier. If you listen to some of the ballads we did on the first album, they were a little gritty as well. Thomas McElroy
Songs like “You Don’t Have to Worry” jumped on that James Brown good foot and even went as far as sampling the Jungle Brothers. R&B chords were layed over top, but it was the SANGIN’ that elevated the music.
Of course En Vogue would grow into a pop juggernaut before imploding but Foster & McElroy found the perfect blend between heavy, sample-based Hip-Hop tracks and Grade A singing that we wouldn’t see again for many years.
In “Who Stole the Soul…” I mentioned how me and Sayyed Munajj (under the moniker Zig & Zag)attempted a Scoop and Scrap move that left me concussed. Well, the music we were dancing to was “Let Me Know Something.”
BBD’s “Poison” came out around the same time as En Vogue’s “Hold On” and the album followed quickly. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that Poison (the album) was groundbreaking. R&B always held itself up like a place of “class.” There was things that you didn’t say and if you said them you had to code it in such a way that it could be up for interpretation.
Sure, you had Prince and Marvin Gaye who pushed the envelope. But they ain’t come out of bubble gum boy bands. Jodeci and Silk and Next and every male R&B group that came out Post-Poison owe their style to BBD.
And what style is that? An anything goes style. Rickie Bell, Michael Bivins, & Ron Devoe pulled a Run DMC on the R&B game, wearing what the youth wore on the street. They performed in jerseys and Starter Jackets. They spoke the same slang (and created some too).
Most importantly for this writing, they completely merged Hip-Hop and R&B. It wasn’t Rickie singing over some Hip-Hop beat with beautiful chords laid on top of them. Rickie was singing on bonafide Hip-Hop beats and for the first few songs of the album, beats produced by the Bomb Squad. Yes, the Bomb Squad of Public Enemy fame. Hank Shocklee says it best:
At the time, rapping was still kind of underground. It was just starting to get mainstream acceptance. This allowed for the opportunity to have an R&B based rap record, as opposed to the rap records at that time, which were more street-oriented. This album was more of a bridge into the R&B world. Plus, there were producers like Teddy Riley doing New Jack Swing and Uptown Records was also having R&B singers on rap beats. The climate was right to have a group with two rappers and a singer. Hank Shocklee
And that explains a lot. The producers of Poison approached it like a Hip-Hop album which was partially based on Micheal Bivin’s motto and vision, “Hip-Hop smoothed out on an R&B tip with a Pop appeal feel to it.” That vision moved a million albums in two months and framed our Senior year very much in the same way that Keith Sweat, Al B, Guy, New Edition, and Bobby B encapsulated my older brother’s.
Back in 1991, Michael Bivins and Jheryl Busby, head of Motown had a shared vision of what they wanted to do with R & B. BBD was a good model in Busby’s estimation. They signed youth group ABC (Another Bad Creation), attacked the industry with “Iesha” and “Playground” and signed four young men from Philadelphia, called themselves Boyz II Men.
Dallas Austin was a new producer and had the hit “Iesha” under his belt when he decided to send a track to Motown.
I did the track, and I sent it off to Motown. They heard it and said it would be great for Boyz II Men. They arranged for me to go to Philly, and when I got there, they already started writing the hook for “Motownphilly,” then we finished it. After that, we recorded “Sympin’.” Since we clicked, we wanted to keep making more songs. Dallas Austin
“Motownphilly” caught on and there was a creative sprint to complete the album. While Dallas Austin modeled his music on Teddy Riley’s New Jack Swing style, Teddy Riley was taking his music to another level.
For many of us, Michael Jackson had been pop for so long that we enjoyed him but he wasn’t necessarily “ours.” Teddy Riley brought Michael ‘Black’ to us with seven of the 14 songs being his productions most notably, “Jam,” “Remember the Times,” and “Keep it in the Closet.”
Meanwhile, Uptown was cooking up their own idea of change. Jodeci, a group that had sung their way into a deal despite doubts from Kurt Woodley (allegedly), Uptown’s A&R, released their first single “Gotta Love” and it got some spins — nothing major. The second release, “Forever My Lady,” hopped up to Number 1 quick fast. “Stay” almost sealed the deal. But it was a Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs remix that pointed the way for the future of R&B.
Puff had created a remix of Jodeci’s “Come And Talk To Me.” The remix sampled EPMD’s “Just A Customer.” (sic) With Jodeci’s vocals and that loop, the sound known as Hip Hop Soul was born. It was a breakthrough. But Jodeci wasn’t from New York. They were from North Carolina. Their sound was soulful, but in my mind, the first incarnation of what I was calling ghettofabulous at that time had to come from uptown, from Harlem, New York. Andre Harrell
He found that New York voice in Yonker’s own Mary J. Blige. As the story goes, Harrell discovered her in 1989 and knew immediately she would be a star. The debate, however, has always been who’s responsible for her and Jodeci’s success. Both groups were under the creative wing of Combs. Both were styled by then girlfriend to Puffy, Misa Hylton. And both got the Hip-Hop Soul treatment. Only difference is, with Mary J. Blige, it was done to perfection.
Songs like, “Real Love,” took the party-starter “Top Billin’s” beat, didn’t tone it down and laid a little piano over it. While other songs were duets between ‘hot’ rappers like Grand Puba and Mary for the title track, “What’s the 411.” This blueprint would be used by Combs in the same way that Motown used that bass, tambourine sound — it became his trademark…and garnered imitators.
1993 was the birth of a new game. There’s a whole new musical generation coming of age between the ages of 16 and 24 who are in the process of picking their stars. They’re making the Jodecis and Jades happen, and putting money in the pocket of the producers behind the artists. Cassandra Mills, Giant Records
She ain’t lie. Songs like the Vassal Benford produced “Don’t Walk Away” (Jade) that yanked the beat from Brand Nubian’s “Drop the Bomb” (via Kool and the Gang) and the Teddy Riley helmed “Right Here” (SWV) remix pulling from “Human Nature” became the sound. And once Combs was fired from Uptown and started his own imprint, Bad Boy, he would perfect it.
Unless they grew up in a house with parents that listened to “old school” R&B, so-called Hip Hop Soul is all most 30 and unders know. You can find them lamenting about “when R&B was good” in the comment section of Shai or Next videos on YouTube. That’s how dominant the Hip Hop Soul sound was.
Faith Evans, Total, & 112 came out between 95–96, all Bad Boy. But once we get into 1996, it becomes blurred. Everything sounds like it could be a Bad Boy release. Uptown’s Soul IV Real, due to Heavy D’s tutelage, sounds Bad Boy-ish. Hell, I thought Case’s “Touch Me, Tease Me” was Bad Boy for years.
The reality is, the majority of the output from 1996 on came from a month of work from Puffy’s core producers (Deric D-Dot, Stevie D, Ron, Nashiem, Carlos Broady, and house engineer, Doug Wilson) where between 40 to 100 tracks were constructed in Trinidad. Shortly thereafter, the team was dubbed The Hitmen and grew to at least 13 producers at one point. These men under the eyes of Sean Combs shaped what R&B would become.
You want to talk about full circle — when New Edition reunited, Puffy and his Hitmen applied that same formula to the originators of the genre. I can’t speak for anyone else, but the people in my circle loves it.
(Jermaine Dupree definitely took that page and ran with it. It’s what made Jagged Edge so popular and eventually he used it to resurrect Mariah Carey from the musical dead with Hip-Hop beats)
For the next four years leading to the new millineum, there were still your Deborah Cox, Toni Braxton, Eric Benet, Joe-types that made what would become classified as “Grown & Sexy” R&B, but by 2001, they failed to “chart.” Groups like Jagged Edge and Destiny’s Child, ruled the roost. The most successful R&B songs were those that included rappers — Joe featuring Mystical, “Stutter,” Jagged Edge featuring Nelly, “Where The Party At,” R-Kelly featuring Jay Z, “Fiesta,” etc.
And, although every group put their Hip-Hop Soul foot forward, most still underlined their projects with an array of proper R&B. The Hip-Hop soul was a Trojan Horse, so to speak. It was no different than Keith Sweat’s Make it Last Forever or Guy’s debut; the thing that sold the records were the dance tracks, what kept the people was the ballads…we just call them shits slow songs. Dru-Hill took that formula to the bank for sure.
But by 2004, artists stayed at the top of the chart longer (Alicia Keys’ “You Don’t Know My Name” & Usher’s “Yeah” both stayed Number 1 on the R&B charts for ten weeks in 2004 as an example) and with less people seeing a level of success, groups began getting dropped left and right. Rappers stopped getting guest singers and began doing the singing themselves.
So what happened?
All last year media was buzzing about Bryson Tiller. They threw accolades at him saying he was “unearthing a sound all his own.” He had Timbaland and Drake itching to sign him due to the 35 million streams on his Soundcloud page. Yet he opted out of both and went with RCA. When asked to describe his sound Tiller said, “it’s just trap and hip hop-influenced R&B, the perfect marriage between hip hop and R&B.” (emphasis, my own) Tiller is 22.
What happened to R&B, the R&B that was the soundtrack to Black folks in the 70s and 80s is simple; it disappeared because the listeners of that music aged out of music and their children, people of my generation, took over as the executives.
My parents and their generation, aside from not purchasing music to the degree that they used to, obviously are no longer taste-makers. Sadly, most Black Music is not made for them.
We came of age with Hip-Hop. R&B was our foundation but Hip-Hop was our passion. The people making music now, by and large, are our children. They’ve never known a world without Hip-Hop.
Add to that, Music Programs have been eliminated across the country, cracks destructive path, and the decline of the Black church, these things all lead to the absence of the type of R&B that existed for over thirty years. We pointed out in “Kanye Babies” the level of entry into music production isn’t the same as it was before. There’s no years of perfecting an instrument when you can buy a program and master it in weeks.
Most of the artists that we mentioned above got their singing chops in the church but the church is no longer the force that it was before crack…nor are the morals.
Most importantly…it doesn’t pay. Getting a band together and making music with live instrumentation will have you thrown in the Neo-Soul Ghetto quick fast.
The music of Bryson Tiller isn’t too far off from the music of the Weeknd which ain’t too far off from the music of Drake…which is a dead ringer for the music that Future makes — they all blend singing and Hip-Hop…well, rap, it’s just not in the form that we know.
The biggest victim is the slow song — ain’t no one making no lovey dovey ballad in these days and time. But otherwise, at least in the eyes of the ones making the music, they’re still doing what New Edition did.
The same way World War I shaped all of the modern world, New Edition and The Force MD’s shaped the modern world of music. Rap ended the world that began with R&B’s emergence from Jazz & Blues. We started that war and we have no one to blame but ourselves.
