neoretro7 said:

R&B/Soul music is fractured and not like what it used to be. I long for the days in the 90's when there was Boyz II Men, Brian McKnight, R Kelly, Toni Braxton, Babyface, Mariah Carey etc. That was R&B in it's purest form and all these artists became very popular and released unforgetable music that immortalizes their artistry.

Today's R&B is very fractured where it has lost it's identity. I think that there is tendency that since all R&B and Hip Hop is predominately encompassed of all black artists then therefore they have to combine it.I think today's R&B arists feel compelled to always have hip hop elements in the music and it does not make it sound like soul.

The neo-soul movement was sucessful even though it contained a little bit of hip hop elements it still maintained it's identity.

In order for r&B to still have relevance should R&B music divorce itself from hip hop music and focus on going back to doing real music with real instruments.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! Then maybe some kids will have a little more sense. I love R&B alot , such as soon as i get home and I do love you by GQ

neoretro7 said:

R&B/Soul music is fractured and not like what it used to be. I long for the days in the 90's when there was Boyz II Men, Brian McKnight, R Kelly, Toni Braxton, Babyface, Mariah Carey etc. That was R&B in it's purest form and all these artists became very popular and released unforgetable music that immortalizes their artistry.

Funny you say that. It might be a generational thing but soul/R'n'B to me was way better in the 60's 70's and 80's. Those acts you mentioned represent the beginning of the end to me.

[Edited 1/24/13 5:14am]

SoulAlive said:

neoretro7 said:

I think we have to blame the New Jack Swing movement which contribued in giving R&B music an identity crisis.

I agree.It was all downhill after 1987.That is when real R&B began to lose its identity.

you're absolutely right, this was the beginning, and the exact year when the decline started....

I hate to say that, as a hip-hop kid myself, but is not about divrcing R&B from Hip-hop. i think (MAINSTREAM) hip-hop has to disppear. I still have respect for my old hip hop figures in the games (Nas, Jay, Common, Talib, Mos Def, MF Doom, the Roots...) and only a few "new" acts (Kanye, Lupe,), but the coonery, buffonery it has become is a fucking disgrace to music, intelligence and the human race (in general, and black people in particular). Today so-called hip-hop acts look more like a "parody of hip-hop" than "hip-hop" itself... Vainandy has coined the perfect word for this : SHIT-HOP.

Though people like Vainandy couldn't already stand that 1990s hip-hop because of the violent culture linked to it (at least the "gangsta rap" thing which, unfortunately already ruled the airwaves back then...), at least you could find clever lyricists (Nas, Biggie, Black Thought, The Wu...), some melodies and well-made beats... and every now and then some upbeat danceable stuff BPM between 100 and 120).

Nowadays : Non existent melody (Nicki Garnage "Beez In A Trap" or "Stupid" hoe, 75% of Lil Wayne "hits"... Honestly, the fuck we call this "music"????), rapping is more about rhyming than having a "flow", a delivery (Shakespeare must be the best rapper of all time then...), one-liner, the dictatorship of wack "punchlines" and undanceable slow ass autotuned Casio keyboard songs.

Honestly, hip-hop needs to fucking die, like right now, so we can save the good memory and the true love we have for rap... I don't want my kids to say, later "ooh my dad loved hip-hop... y'know, Lil Wayne, Drake, Future, Nicki Minaj"... I wanna hear the real Godfathers instead (Nas, eminem, Eric B & Rakim, A tribe called, Public Enemy...)

Hiphop was the KOD of R&B. (Kiss of DEATH)

FrenchGuy said:

I hate to say that, as a hip-hop kid myself, but is not about divrcing R&B from Hip-hop. i think (MAINSTREAM) hip-hop has to disppear. I still have respect for my old hip hop figures in the games (Nas, Jay, Common, Talib, Mos Def, MF Doom, the Roots...) and only a few "new" acts (Kanye, Lupe,), but the coonery, buffonery it has become is a fucking disgrace to music, intelligence and the human race (in general, and black people in particular). Today so-called hip-hop acts look more like a "parody of hip-hop" than "hip-hop" itself... Vainandy has coined the perfect word for this : SHIT-HOP.

Though people like Vainandy couldn't already stand that 1990s hip-hop because of the violent culture linked to it (at least the "gangsta rap" thing which, unfortunately already ruled the airwaves back then...), at least you could find clever lyricists (Nas, Biggie, Black Thought, The Wu...), some melodies and well-made beats... and every now and then some upbeat danceable stuff BPM between 100 and 120).

Nowadays : Non existent melody (Nicki Garnage "Beez In A Trap" or "Stupid" hoe, 75% of Lil Wayne "hits"... Honestly, the fuck we call this "music"????), rapping is more about rhyming than having a "flow", a delivery (Shakespeare must be the best rapper of all time then...), one-liner, the dictatorship of wack "punchlines" and undanceable slow ass autotuned Casio keyboard songs.

Honestly, hip-hop needs to fucking die, like right now, so we can save the good memory and the true love we have for rap... I don't want my kids to say, later "ooh my dad loved hip-hop... y'know, Lil Wayne, Drake, Future, Nicki Minaj"... I wanna hear the real Godfathers instead (Nas, eminem, Eric B & Rakim, A tribe called, Public Enemy...)

Not only the violent culture to it, but the main reason is the downright dullness of it. When you're used to hardcore slammin' music with hard pounding drums and extreme rhythmic basslines so hot that even if you're sitting in your chair, your leg automatic starts to tap on it's own to the rhythm of the music as if it has a mind of it's own with no help at all from the brain, you don't let it go without putting up a fight from the hottest fires of hell. You're not going to be too happy with going backwards into time instead of forward, with music slowed down to a tempo of Lawrence Welk. People fought like hell to get rhythm into music and get away from those dull days. Then to strip all the instruments such as the hard pounding drums and rhythmic bass off the songs and just be left with a cheap weak sounding beat that just barely taps reminding you of a clock slowly ticking...tick, tock, tick, tock.....uh.....hell no, that's not gonna go over real well with someone who grew up with much better.

To be truthful, if the music was hardcore funky and slammin' enough, I might be slightly tempted to overlook the ridiculous violence, negativity, and ignorance of it. I used to love some 2 Live Crew and they are as negative as you can get. But the music was slammin' though. However, there's only so many times that you can hear "Planet Rock", "Electric Kingdom", and "Egypt, Egypt" sampled in every way possible that you'll eventually get tired of that too and start demanding something 100% totally orginal made from scratch from the ground up like music used to be made with no help of samples whatsoever.

And then there's the blantant homophobia in not only a lot of the lyrics of some of these assholes, but also in their interviews and the way they just carry themselves altogether that I could NEVER tolerate and when I see other gay people tolerating it and listening to that shit, it makes me want to just slap the hell out of them for being complete fools. I wouldn't give a damn how great I thought the music was, I wouldn't be able to get past that at all. That's like if a white artist was to make music with the most vile, hateful, racist lyrics imaginable. You sure as hell wouldn't find many black people buying it and loving it. I tell ya, some of the queens need their damn heads examined.

vainandy said:

neoretro7 said:

Adele is playing the role of Whitney Houston they make that genre easy for people who don't listen to much R&B.

There has never been mutiple R&B artists who are popular in the mainstream with the exception of Motown.

You must be very young because the disco era of the 1970s had so many R&B artists on pop radio that they were practically taking over pop radio. And white people back then were much less "politically correct" back then and would say what was really on their mind back then rather than hide behind other reasons like they do these days in order to not appear racist. Back then, they were racist and proud of it.

When it came to disco, comments were made very openly that it was "jungle bunny music" and that's just some of the nicer comments. The others were much more brutal and much more racist with all the racial slurs included. And this extremely rhythmic music was the "blackest" thing they had ever heard on white pop radio unless they flipped over to black R&B radio and listened to some of the stuff that didn't cross over and it was infuriating them that it was quickly taking over the white pop stations. There had been the Motown era previously but it was a more tame era. Disco with it's pounding drums and rhythmic basslines was like straight up Africa in their eyes and all the "jungle" comments were thrown around. And here their white kids were listening to it in droves and it absolutely infuriated them. Then when they found out that the music had strong gay roots also, well, that was just the end of it then. It had to be killed off by any means necessary and the backlash began. Loads of white people were very hostile about the music and very vocal about it and they didn't bite their tongues either. They got plain out racist about it and didn't try to hide it either until years later when it became fashionable to be "politically correct".

After the backlash that began in 1979, if you listen to the funk of 1980 when black music became practically extinct on pop radio except for some of the tamer adult contemporary type black artists that still remained on pop radio, the funk of that year that had been recorded in mid to late 1979 during the backlash and in 1980 after the backlash, the funk of that year still had a very disco feel to it. Stuff like Mass Production "Firecracker", Lakeside "Rough Rider", The Isley Brothers "It's A Disco Night", The SOS Band "Take Your Time (Do It Right)", Lipps, Inc. "Power", etc. This stuff would have made it onto pop radio had the backlash not occurred but still remained on R&B after the backlash and even more similar type stuff was recorded years afterwards and became big hits on R&B radio. Pop radio distanced itself the furthest they could from all things "black" during that time. And if you notice decades later in the 1990s and 2000s, when a white person in their 40s starts talking about disco songs, many of them will name things that came out several years after disco's "death" such as The Dazz Band "Let It Whip", The Gap Band "Party Train", Midnight Star "Electricity", etc. Somehow they became exposed to these songs maybe at a party, or through a sample in a rap song, or other various reasons but these songs were not disco songs because disco's "death" was 1979. But the fact that these songs were uptempo, of a party nature, and by black artists, they just assume they were disco songs because they had no exposure to them on pop radio and they just assume that it must have been a disco song that they overlooked during the disco era when black music was all over the pop airwaves. And if you notice that most white people, even on threads on the org, had never even heard of Prince before "Little Red Corvette" in 1982, that just goes to show how segregated the radio was after disco's "death" because Prince had already been a huge star for years on R&B radio.

As for the little miss goodie two shoes that you think "saved" R&B, no, what she did was "whiten" it back and take out all those so called "jungle" elements that the white crowd considered so "black". She made nice little "safe" music that white people could listen to and not get the "nigger lover" label placed on them if they listened to it. Sorry to use such harsh words but that's just reality and Lord knows I had that label thrown on me for years and didn't give a damn if they liked me or not. Ironically, the shit hop era was the next era where black music took over white pop radio much moreso than disco could have ever dreamed to. But this time, it was completely different. It was much cheaper to make since it consisted of mainly song samples over a slow weak sounding beat. The images were a white racist's dream come true. A black man acting like a stupid, uneducated, ignorant criminal. Black on black crime and killing of each other. And while white kids were listening to it in droves, they still listened to it in the safety of their nice suburban homes away from the violent images that were glorified in the music. And unlike disco, which brought whites and blacks together, with shit hop, there's no threat of the white kids ever seeing the black people making this music as equals because the images they have show them are beneath white people. I mean, with disco, you simply had whites and blacks partying side by side on a dance floor. Eventually, some of the white people would suddenly take a look and say "Hey, these folks aren't the monsters that society has portrayed them to be for ages. They're just like I am except they're another color". But with shit hop, you have a black person not only acting as a criminal but being proud to be a criminal and flaunting it. No white person, black person, or any other person with good sense, is going to see someone like this as their equal. It just helps the racists to feel superior with these images...."See there, what did I tell you. They're all savages. Just look at them fighting and killing each other and then boasting about it.". Oh, and the homophobia in shit hop, well, that just kills two birds with one stone. "Keep them black folks in their place as criminals and bash those damn fags too". I'm telling ya, it's a Klansman's dream come true.

.

.

.

[Edited 1/24/13 3:20am]

Really now? so that's why most white kids buy hip hop albums and then go to see their fav hiphop/rappers perform with a crowd of mixed people huh? Come over to Europe and you'll see people dance to hip hop music and they'll pay over 150 dollars to see their fav rappers. Young people (born 1985-1995) don't give a shit about color like people prior did, they all sing along to Kanye West songs and enjoy listening to more concious rap as well. There are many white producers who are inspired by these "thuggish" rappers, your posts always sound so racist to me. I love me some disco music too, but why the hate towards hiphop & rap. If you don't like it dont say nothing about it...

GoldDolphin said:

vainandy said:

You must be very young because the disco era of the 1970s had so many R&B artists on pop radio that they were practically taking over pop radio. And white people back then were much less "politically correct" back then and would say what was really on their mind back then rather than hide behind other reasons like they do these days in order to not appear racist. Back then, they were racist and proud of it.

When it came to disco, comments were made very openly that it was "jungle bunny music" and that's just some of the nicer comments. The others were much more brutal and much more racist with all the racial slurs included. And this extremely rhythmic music was the "blackest" thing they had ever heard on white pop radio unless they flipped over to black R&B radio and listened to some of the stuff that didn't cross over and it was infuriating them that it was quickly taking over the white pop stations. There had been the Motown era previously but it was a more tame era. Disco with it's pounding drums and rhythmic basslines was like straight up Africa in their eyes and all the "jungle" comments were thrown around. And here their white kids were listening to it in droves and it absolutely infuriated them. Then when they found out that the music had strong gay roots also, well, that was just the end of it then. It had to be killed off by any means necessary and the backlash began. Loads of white people were very hostile about the music and very vocal about it and they didn't bite their tongues either. They got plain out racist about it and didn't try to hide it either until years later when it became fashionable to be "politically correct".

After the backlash that began in 1979, if you listen to the funk of 1980 when black music became practically extinct on pop radio except for some of the tamer adult contemporary type black artists that still remained on pop radio, the funk of that year that had been recorded in mid to late 1979 during the backlash and in 1980 after the backlash, the funk of that year still had a very disco feel to it. Stuff like Mass Production "Firecracker", Lakeside "Rough Rider", The Isley Brothers "It's A Disco Night", The SOS Band "Take Your Time (Do It Right)", Lipps, Inc. "Power", etc. This stuff would have made it onto pop radio had the backlash not occurred but still remained on R&B after the backlash and even more similar type stuff was recorded years afterwards and became big hits on R&B radio. Pop radio distanced itself the furthest they could from all things "black" during that time. And if you notice decades later in the 1990s and 2000s, when a white person in their 40s starts talking about disco songs, many of them will name things that came out several years after disco's "death" such as The Dazz Band "Let It Whip", The Gap Band "Party Train", Midnight Star "Electricity", etc. Somehow they became exposed to these songs maybe at a party, or through a sample in a rap song, or other various reasons but these songs were not disco songs because disco's "death" was 1979. But the fact that these songs were uptempo, of a party nature, and by black artists, they just assume they were disco songs because they had no exposure to them on pop radio and they just assume that it must have been a disco song that they overlooked during the disco era when black music was all over the pop airwaves. And if you notice that most white people, even on threads on the org, had never even heard of Prince before "Little Red Corvette" in 1982, that just goes to show how segregated the radio was after disco's "death" because Prince had already been a huge star for years on R&B radio.

As for the little miss goodie two shoes that you think "saved" R&B, no, what she did was "whiten" it back and take out all those so called "jungle" elements that the white crowd considered so "black". She made nice little "safe" music that white people could listen to and not get the "nigger lover" label placed on them if they listened to it. Sorry to use such harsh words but that's just reality and Lord knows I had that label thrown on me for years and didn't give a damn if they liked me or not. Ironically, the shit hop era was the next era where black music took over white pop radio much moreso than disco could have ever dreamed to. But this time, it was completely different. It was much cheaper to make since it consisted of mainly song samples over a slow weak sounding beat. The images were a white racist's dream come true. A black man acting like a stupid, uneducated, ignorant criminal. Black on black crime and killing of each other. And while white kids were listening to it in droves, they still listened to it in the safety of their nice suburban homes away from the violent images that were glorified in the music. And unlike disco, which brought whites and blacks together, with shit hop, there's no threat of the white kids ever seeing the black people making this music as equals because the images they have show them are beneath white people. I mean, with disco, you simply had whites and blacks partying side by side on a dance floor. Eventually, some of the white people would suddenly take a look and say "Hey, these folks aren't the monsters that society has portrayed them to be for ages. They're just like I am except they're another color". But with shit hop, you have a black person not only acting as a criminal but being proud to be a criminal and flaunting it. No white person, black person, or any other person with good sense, is going to see someone like this as their equal. It just helps the racists to feel superior with these images...."See there, what did I tell you. They're all savages. Just look at them fighting and killing each other and then boasting about it.". Oh, and the homophobia in shit hop, well, that just kills two birds with one stone. "Keep them black folks in their place as criminals and bash those damn fags too". I'm telling ya, it's a Klansman's dream come true.

.

.

.

[Edited 1/24/13 3:20am]

Really now? so that's why most white kids buy hip hop albums and then go to see their fav hiphop/rappers perform with a crowd of mixed people huh? Come over to Europe and you'll see people dance to hip hop music and they'll pay over 150 dollars to see their fav rappers. Young people (born 1985-1995) don't give a shit about color like people prior did, they all sing along to Kanye West songs and enjoy listening to more concious rap as well. There are many white producers who are inspired by these "thuggish" rappers, your posts always sound so racist to me. I love me some disco music too, but why the hate towards hiphop & rap. If you don't like it dont say nothing about it...

Uh...excuse me, but you're talking about Europe which is a total different world. I live not only in America, but also in The South, which is as different from your world as Kansas is to The Wizard of Oz. And if you don't think young people care about race over here, then you need to search the web and see some of their comments about President Obama to wake you up. This ain't make believe La La Land perfect world over here.

I have seen very few white kids go to these rap shows unless it is just a huge name icon star like Prince or Madonna would be in the pop/rock/funk world. They buy the hell out of the music but they don't attend the shows. They listen to it in their nice safe suburbs and even when they do dress the part themselves, the world sees them like "Oh that's Johnny, he's harmless. He's playing dressup again because he's all into that rap music.". While at the same time, many black kids are going out and actually living out the violence these rappers glorify and even the harmless ones just like little white Jimmy over in the surburbs who are simply playing dressup just like he is, are being feared by the general public because yes, it is a violent looking image. And yes, I'm sure there are plenty of white producers inspired by those damn thugs, that's the problem. They're influenced by it and keep putting more and more of the shit out to increase the problem.

And as for my posts sounding racist, the only other white person that I can think of that is as "black" as my white ass is, was Teena Marie and she took lessons from me. Just because someone hates and despises shit hop does not mean they are racist. I know countless black people who hate it much more than I do because they have to live with it's dangerous influence in their own neighborhood. I've heard stupid people accuse me of that before....."Oh you're racist because you hate all of today's black music".....Uh..no, you got it backwards. Lawrence Welk had more rhythm than today's black music and that is about as "white" as you can get. I don't hate today's black music because black people are making it. I hate it because the music itself ain't "black" enough. You could take the "whitest" Lawrence Welk record you can find and a shit hop record and mix them and you'd have to speed the shit hop record up to match the Lawrence Welk record. And I'll say whatever the hell I want to about something I don't like because this is a forum and isn't a forum a place to voice opinions? Duh???? But then again, I shouldn't even be having to explain this because I've got plenty of ass and someone can always kiss it if they don't like it.

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.

.

[Edited 1/24/13 12:43pm]

It already has.

Can I just say that calling the genre "hip-hop" is not accurate. Rap is a genre, not hip-hop. Hip-hop was a culture but of course the media miscontrue that name and used it as a genre and we bought into it.

Technically in some R&B music today, I hardly hear rap-styled music anymore meshed in with R&B. Just my opinion.

vainandy said:

GoldDolphin said:

Really now? so that's why most white kids buy hip hop albums and then go to see their fav hiphop/rappers perform with a crowd of mixed people huh? Come over to Europe and you'll see people dance to hip hop music and they'll pay over 150 dollars to see their fav rappers. Young people (born 1985-1995) don't give a shit about color like people prior did, they all sing along to Kanye West songs and enjoy listening to more concious rap as well. There are many white producers who are inspired by these "thuggish" rappers, your posts always sound so racist to me. I love me some disco music too, but why the hate towards hiphop & rap. If you don't like it dont say nothing about it...

Uh...excuse me, but you're talking about Europe which is a total different world. I live not only in America, but also in The South, which is as different from your world as Kansas is to The Wizard of Oz. And if you don't think young people care about race over here, then you need to search the web and see some of their comments about President Obama to wake you up. This ain't make believe La La Land perfect world over here.

I have seen very few white kids go to these rap shows unless it is just a huge name icon star like Prince or Madonna would be in the pop/rock/funk world. They buy the hell out of the music but they don't attend the shows. They listen to it in their nice safe suburbs and even when they do dress the part themselves, the world sees them like "Oh that's Johnny, he's harmless. He's playing dressup again because he's all into that rap music.". While at the same time, many black kids are going out and actually living out the violence these rappers glorify and even the harmless ones just like little white Jimmy over in the surburbs who are simply playing dressup just like he is, are being feared by the general public because yes, it is a violent looking image. And yes, I'm sure there are plenty of white producers inspired by those damn thugs, that's the problem. They're influenced by it and keep putting more and more of the shit out to increase the problem.

And as for my posts sounding racist, the only other white person that I can think of that is as "black" as my white ass is, was Teena Marie and she took lessons from me. Just because someone hates and despises shit hop does not mean they are racist. I know countless black people who hate it much more than I do because they have to live with it's dangerous influence in their own neighborhood. I've heard stupid people accuse me of that before....."Oh you're racist because you hate all of today's black music".....Uh..no, you got it backwards. Lawrence Welk had more rhythm than today's black music and that is about as "white" as you can get. I don't hate today's black music because black people are making it. I hate it because the music itself ain't "black" enough. You could take the "whitest" Lawrence Welk record you can find and a shit hop record and mix them and you'd have to speed the shit hop record up to match the Lawrence Welk record. And I'll say whatever the hell I want to about something I don't like because this is a forum and isn't a forum a place to voice opinions? Duh???? But then again, I shouldn't even be having to explain this because I've got plenty of ass and someone can always kiss it if they don't like it.

.

.

.

[Edited 1/24/13 12:43pm]

" I know countless black people who hate it much more than I do because they have to live with it's dangerous influence in their own neighborhood". Agreed to that sentence , besides I want to here REAL MUSIC again . Real instruments and such.

Time frame wise.The last R&B music I liked was when Prince and Rick James were both in style.

The beginning of the end for me was 1987.Music in general started getting hardcore and bitter.

Timmy84 said:

Can I just say that calling the genre "hip-hop" is not accurate. Rap is a genre, not hip-hop. Hip-hop was a culture but of course the media miscontrue that name and used it as a genre and we bought into it.

Technically in some R&B music today, I hardly hear rap-styled music anymore meshed in with R&B. Just my opinion.

It's semantics at this point Hip Hop/Rap are now married in terms of definition. Those who are in the know of the differences are a minority, but John Q Public can't tell between the two.

Lack of musicianship is what has hurt the last twenty years of R+B.

R+B Performers of the Past:

- Grew up getting music fundamentals (ie playing in school, church, family etc)

- Exposure to various musical genres (Motown, Jackson 5, Miles Davis, Prince, Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan)

- Using real instruments and less reliance on technology to produce songs

-

Current Performers:

- Musicianship principles have taken a nose dive in the general population, specifically urban disctricts

- It is easier to produce ''casio'' beats without understanding key musical theories

- Lack of musical exposure

- Fruity Loops and similar programs can solve many problems in the musically ignorant while ignoring mastering and layering a track correctly.

What we need as an audience is the essence of live bands with full ensembles, and not this whiny, out-of-breath, add-a-studio-rapper, R+Pollution we hear on the radio.

[Duplicate Post]

[Edited 1/24/13 18:47pm]

gdiminished said:

What we need as an audience is the essence of live bands with full ensembles, and not this whiny, out-of-breath, add-a-studio-rapper, R+Pollution we hear on the radio.

It's cheaper for the average club to pay a DJ to play records than to hire a band and a DJ doesn't have to split money with other people.

vainandy said:

The problem with most of today's ''R&B'':

- Techno-Eurodance-House sound

- Every song with a black person is considered R&B

- Lack of instrumentation, proper arrangements. Not sure how much theory these producers know (or if they have the knowledge, how much they are using!)

I think R&B music can have some hip hop elements. After all these elements came from R&B in the first place.

I'm not sure if this is just ''R&B'' or not, but everything now is quantized like crazy. No feel, no soul.

neoretro7 said:

rialb said:

Some people, like me, would argue that nineties R & B was watered down and that "real" R & B in its purest form died out in the late seventies/early eighties.

The nineties music was still good though because artists were actually singing.

Who can ever forget Luther Vandross who also dominated the 90's and raise the standards back to days of the 70's era R&B.

I think 90's the real and last solid era of real R&B acts it started to change with gansta rap reach full popularity in the late 90s'

I say in the late 90s Gangsta Rap was dying (mainstream) and the likes of Puffy & BadBoy took over with all their hip hop/R&B/pop crossover.

Marrk said:

neoretro7 said:

R&B/Soul music is fractured and not like what it used to be. I long for the days in the 90's when there was Boyz II Men, Brian McKnight, R Kelly, Toni Braxton, Babyface, Mariah Carey etc. That was R&B in it's purest form and all these artists became very popular and released unforgetable music that immortalizes their artistry.

Funny you say that. It might be a generational thing but soul/R'n'B to me was way better in the 60's 70's and 80's. Those acts you mentioned represent the beginning of the end to me.

[Edited 1/24/13 5:14am]

Same here, I think 1986/87 had the last crumbles of the good RnB, then it died. Neo-Soul brought us some nice records though in the late 90's. That was about it...

GoldDolphin said:

vainandy said:

Uh...excuse me, but you're talking about Europe which is a total different world. I live not only in America, but also in The South, which is as different from your world as Kansas is to The Wizard of Oz. And if you don't think young people care about race over here, then you need to search the web and see some of their comments about President Obama to wake you up. This ain't make believe La La Land perfect world over here.

I have seen very few white kids go to these rap shows unless it is just a huge name icon star like Prince or Madonna would be in the pop/rock/funk world. They buy the hell out of the music but they don't attend the shows. They listen to it in their nice safe suburbs and even when they do dress the part themselves, the world sees them like "Oh that's Johnny, he's harmless. He's playing dressup again because he's all into that rap music.". While at the same time, many black kids are going out and actually living out the violence these rappers glorify and even the harmless ones just like little white Jimmy over in the surburbs who are simply playing dressup just like he is, are being feared by the general public because yes, it is a violent looking image. And yes, I'm sure there are plenty of white producers inspired by those damn thugs, that's the problem. They're influenced by it and keep putting more and more of the shit out to increase the problem.

And as for my posts sounding racist, the only other white person that I can think of that is as "black" as my white ass is, was Teena Marie and she took lessons from me. Just because someone hates and despises shit hop does not mean they are racist. I know countless black people who hate it much more than I do because they have to live with it's dangerous influence in their own neighborhood. I've heard stupid people accuse me of that before....."Oh you're racist because you hate all of today's black music".....Uh..no, you got it backwards. Lawrence Welk had more rhythm than today's black music and that is about as "white" as you can get. I don't hate today's black music because black people are making it. I hate it because the music itself ain't "black" enough. You could take the "whitest" Lawrence Welk record you can find and a shit hop record and mix them and you'd have to speed the shit hop record up to match the Lawrence Welk record. And I'll say whatever the hell I want to about something I don't like because this is a forum and isn't a forum a place to voice opinions? Duh???? But then again, I shouldn't even be having to explain this because I've got plenty of ass and someone can always kiss it if they don't like it.

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[Edited 1/24/13 12:43pm]

I may not live in the south, but when I did live there for a time with my ex boyfriend who btw is black American, I lived with mostly black people and the blacks who are against Hiphop/rap music are mostly conservatives/religious nuts who don't accept wordly music at all, because everything you should listen to is gospel music. Obviously there are some people that simply don't like it, but who cares, it's the same with funk- not all black people like funk music. It's interesting a person like yourself can talk about who attends hip hop shows, when you know nothing about it and have probably never attended a show. To the contrary most rappers will tell you, that their audiences have a large percentage of white people in their concerts. Yes, Latinos and blacks are among the people who usually are into the whole hip hop thing because that's how it started in NYC, but it has spread and now everyone from whites, Asians and native Americans listen to it. Hiphop/rap music has inspired many artists like D'angelo, erykah badu, Angie stone, for instance but I guess because they sing and play instruments they are much better than their colleagues who rap and do that type of music? You may not like rap music but that doesn't mean that white people hate it, like I said before - the younger generations don't see color the same way you do. Interracial dating, listening to rap music or other types of music - is just modern music and not white or black music like it used to be. The south is much conservative than the rest of the US, but I have family all over in the US and there are people who hate rap music and there are those who love it and just because you dress Hiphop (which can be many styles today) doesn't mean you look criminal. You sound like Geraldo and those other people on FOX saying trayvon Martin was a criminal because he dressed a certain way! Ugh, I can't stand old people sometimes -_-!!!

I know plenty of black people that listen to gospel music but they listen to other forms of music too. I've known a few black people that listen to nothing but gospel music but they were like 80 years old. And I have met very few black conservatives of any age except for a rare Uncle Tom every blue moon. And as for the black people that hate shit hop, the majority of them that I've met listen to blues which is HUGE down here and the music is far from conservative. Just listen to some Denise LaSalle if you don't believe it. She's obscene as hell but at least she's actual music and not a bunch of "talking over a slow beat" bullshit. And the rest of them I've met listen to old R&B, funk, house, rock, etc.

And as for the concerts, I work very near to the venues that hold concerts and I see which type of crowds attend each type of show. Yes, if someone like Beyonce came here, she would have a largely mixed crowd. If her husband were to come here, he would have a majority young black crowd. And if you think the younger generation no longer sees race, then you are living with blinders on. I see and live around the little young rednecks with the shit hop blasting from their pickup trucks with the Confederate flag painted in the back window. They absolutely LOVE shit hop but the fact that they love it, still doesn't mean they aren't racist. And I hear their racist remarks all the time even while they have the shit hop playing in the background. So your ex boyfriend is black? Well, tell that to some of these little shit hop listening white boys down here and let's see how much you think the younger generation no longer sees race when you see their reaction.

And as for me sounding like the folks on Fox, they tried to start an ordinance in my area a few years ago against sagging pants. I heard many white people say they were for the ordinance and I never had any arguments with them because I knew there was more to their reasons than just simply not liking the look of the sagging pants. I knew they also had racist reasons and you will never change a racist's mind because they are ignorant. But I had endless arguements with black people who were for the ordinance and they all had excellent arguements such as they were sick and damn tired of these damn kids glorifying criminals and then breaking into their homes and terrorizing their neighborhoods because they were imitating the ignorant images of these rappers. My arguement to them was that I totally agree with them about the ignorant ass rappers and their horrible influence but when it comes to banning the way someone dresses, no one should be able to stop someone from dressing however they want to no matter how stupid, ignorant, and low class, no class, gutter trashy it looks. Thank God the ordinance didn't pass.

So you can keep your little twisting around of how I actually am to suit your purposes simply because you hate seeing someone attack a genre of music that needs to be attacked. I live here and have lived here my entire life so I know how it is down here and you don't. You're simply an outsider looking in. You get your info from books and magazine interviews. I live here with it. And so your ex boyfriend was black? Well, I've had enough black lovers to start an episode of "Soul Train" and I've been the way I am since 1979 long before it was "fashionable" and I was hated by my own race for years. So if you think simply hating a genre of music makes someone racist, then you must be like 14 years old or something because you absolutely don't know what the hell you're talking about.

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[Edited 1/26/13 13:13pm]

vainandy said:

GoldDolphin said:

vainandy said: I may not live in the south, but when I did live there for a time with my ex boyfriend who btw is black American, I lived with mostly black people and the blacks who are against Hiphop/rap music are mostly conservatives/religious nuts who don't accept wordly music at all, because everything you should listen to is gospel music. Obviously there are some people that simply don't like it, but who cares, it's the same with funk- not all black people like funk music. It's interesting a person like yourself can talk about who attends hip hop shows, when you know nothing about it and have probably never attended a show. To the contrary most rappers will tell you, that their audiences have a large percentage of white people in their concerts. Yes, Latinos and blacks are among the people who usually are into the whole hip hop thing because that's how it started in NYC, but it has spread and now everyone from whites, Asians and native Americans listen to it. Hiphop/rap music has inspired many artists like D'angelo, erykah badu, Angie stone, for instance but I guess because they sing and play instruments they are much better than their colleagues who rap and do that type of music? You may not like rap music but that doesn't mean that white people hate it, like I said before - the younger generations don't see color the same way you do. Interracial dating, listening to rap music or other types of music - is just modern music and not white or black music like it used to be. The south is much conservative than the rest of the US, but I have family all over in the US and there are people who hate rap music and there are those who love it and just because you dress Hiphop (which can be many styles today) doesn't mean you look criminal. You sound like Geraldo and those other people on FOX saying trayvon Martin was a criminal because he dressed a certain way! Ugh, I can't stand old people sometimes -_-!!!

I know plenty of black people that listen to gospel music but they listen to other forms of music too. I've known a few black people that listen to nothing but gospel music but they were like 80 years old. And I have met very few black conservatives of any age except for a rare Uncle Tom every blue moon. And as for the black people that hate shit hop, the majority of them that I've met listen to blues which is HUGE down here and the music is far from conservative. Just listen to some Denise LaSalle if you don't believe it. She's obscene as hell but at least she's actual music and not a bunch of "talking over a slow beat" bullshit. And the rest of them I've met listen to old R&B, funk, house, rock, etc.

And as for the concerts, I work very near to the venues that hold concerts and I see which type of crowds attend each type of show. Yes, if someone like Beyonce came here, she would have a largely mixed crowd. If her husband were to come here, he would have a majority young black crowd. And if you think the younger generation no longer sees race, then you are living with blinders on. I see and live around the little young rednecks with the shit hop blasting from their pickup trucks with the Confederate flag painted in the back window. They absolutely LOVE shit hop but the fact that they love it, still doesn't mean they aren't racist. And I hear their racist remarks all the time even while they have the shit hop playing in the background. So your ex boyfriend is black? Well, tell that to some of these little shit hop listening white boys down here and let's see how much you think the younger generation no longer sees race when you see their reaction.

And as for me sounding like the folks on Fox, they tried to start an ordinance in my area a few years ago against sagging pants. I heard many white people say they were for the ordinance and I never had any arguments with them because I knew there was more to their reasons than just simply not liking the look of the sagging pants. I knew they also had racist reasons and you will never change a racist's mind because they are ignorant. But I had endless arguements with black people who were for the ordinance and they all had excellent arguements such as they were sick and damn tired of these damn kids glorifying criminals and then breaking into their homes and terrorizing their neighborhoods because they were imitating the ignorant images of these rappers. My arguement to them was that I totally agree with them about the ignorant ass rappers and their horrible influence but when it comes to banning the way someone dresses, no one should be able to stop someone from dressing however they want to no matter how stupid, ignorant, and low class, no class, gutter trashy it looks. Thank God the ordinance didn't pass.

So you can keep your little twisting around of how I actually am to suit your purposes simply because you hate seeing someone attack a genre of music that needs to be attacked. I live here and have lived here my entire life so I know how it is down here and you don't. You're simply an outsider looking in. You get your info from books and magazine interviews. I live here with it. And so your ex boyfriend was black? Well, I've had enough black lovers to start an episode of "Soul Train" and I've been the way I am since 1979 long before it was "fashionable" and I was hated by my own race for years. So if you think simply hating a genre of music makes someone racist, then you must be like 14 years old or something because you absolutely don't know what the hell you're talking about.

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[Edited 1/26/13 13:13pm]

You aint talking to no white person and you don't need to tell me where I get my information from. I'm not an oustider looking in how it is (I might not be born in the US but that doesnt mean anything), there needs to be no explanation from you on how neo-colonialism and racism has affected many of my relatives and family members. The mere fact that I mentioned my ex was black american, is because I'm not a black american but rather from a mixed ancestry. Just because you sleep with a black person doesn't make you an expert on black people , that's the silliest thing I've heard. I feel sad for you hating your "race" (there is not a thing called race really, because we are all homo sapiens sapiens that parted to different parts of the world 100.000 years ago, hence our skin color and texture of hair changed according to where we moved to). The white race isnt inferior or superior to anyone and I wish one day you could come to an understanding that your white heritage isnt a bad thing, yes white people have done horrible things but not everyone.

The hatred towards hip hop music & rap is much deeper than you think though, because the white man (the establishment) fear the expression of anger and frustration from the youth who have been ignored and been seen as inferior for a long time. It's street poetry and teaches people all around the world, how it is to be at the bottom of everyone. Not all rappers are thugs and criminals, learn about hip hop before you talk about it. Nas for instance has a father who was a jazz musician but choice the path of rapping because that's where his heart was, Q-Tip and many other rappers discuss our society in many ways that no mainstream would do because they are afraid.

I'm aware there are people who dislike hiphop for various reasons, (I'm a musician myself) and I have some friends who play blues music who dislike it because of the sampling factor, but not because of the rappers. They just wish they could be more instrumental but then comes the question if music has to be done by an instrumentalist musician, because technically rappers are also instrumentalists because they use their voice just like singers do. But enough of this.

Most r&b music you hear today and the last 5 years or so, have been influenced by HOUSE & Electro and stupid euro-pop music so that's where your main focus should be on.

funkaholic1972 said:

Same here, I think 1986/87 had the last crumbles of the good RnB, then it died. Neo-Soul brought us some nice records though in the late 90's. That was about it...

The other night,I was listening to an oldies R&B station and they played three great R&B songs in a row:

"Love's Train" by Con Funk Shun

"Yearning For Your Love" by Gap Band

"Tell Me If You Still Care" by the SOS Band

and I was like,"damn...why can't today's R&B sound this good??!!" Those three songs are soulful,genuine and do not feature a trace of rap or hip-hop.

Contrary to popular belief,great R&B music can be made without using any hip-hop elements.

GoldDolphin said:

vainandy said:

I know plenty of black people that listen to gospel music but they listen to other forms of music too. I've known a few black people that listen to nothing but gospel music but they were like 80 years old. And I have met very few black conservatives of any age except for a rare Uncle Tom every blue moon. And as for the black people that hate shit hop, the majority of them that I've met listen to blues which is HUGE down here and the music is far from conservative. Just listen to some Denise LaSalle if you don't believe it. She's obscene as hell but at least she's actual music and not a bunch of "talking over a slow beat" bullshit. And the rest of them I've met listen to old R&B, funk, house, rock, etc.

And as for the concerts, I work very near to the venues that hold concerts and I see which type of crowds attend each type of show. Yes, if someone like Beyonce came here, she would have a largely mixed crowd. If her husband were to come here, he would have a majority young black crowd. And if you think the younger generation no longer sees race, then you are living with blinders on. I see and live around the little young rednecks with the shit hop blasting from their pickup trucks with the Confederate flag painted in the back window. They absolutely LOVE shit hop but the fact that they love it, still doesn't mean they aren't racist. And I hear their racist remarks all the time even while they have the shit hop playing in the background. So your ex boyfriend is black? Well, tell that to some of these little shit hop listening white boys down here and let's see how much you think the younger generation no longer sees race when you see their reaction.

And as for me sounding like the folks on Fox, they tried to start an ordinance in my area a few years ago against sagging pants. I heard many white people say they were for the ordinance and I never had any arguments with them because I knew there was more to their reasons than just simply not liking the look of the sagging pants. I knew they also had racist reasons and you will never change a racist's mind because they are ignorant. But I had endless arguements with black people who were for the ordinance and they all had excellent arguements such as they were sick and damn tired of these damn kids glorifying criminals and then breaking into their homes and terrorizing their neighborhoods because they were imitating the ignorant images of these rappers. My arguement to them was that I totally agree with them about the ignorant ass rappers and their horrible influence but when it comes to banning the way someone dresses, no one should be able to stop someone from dressing however they want to no matter how stupid, ignorant, and low class, no class, gutter trashy it looks. Thank God the ordinance didn't pass.

So you can keep your little twisting around of how I actually am to suit your purposes simply because you hate seeing someone attack a genre of music that needs to be attacked. I live here and have lived here my entire life so I know how it is down here and you don't. You're simply an outsider looking in. You get your info from books and magazine interviews. I live here with it. And so your ex boyfriend was black? Well, I've had enough black lovers to start an episode of "Soul Train" and I've been the way I am since 1979 long before it was "fashionable" and I was hated by my own race for years. So if you think simply hating a genre of music makes someone racist, then you must be like 14 years old or something because you absolutely don't know what the hell you're talking about.

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.

[Edited 1/26/13 13:13pm]

You aint talking to no white person and you don't need to tell me where I get my information from. I'm not an oustider looking in how it is (I might not be born in the US but that doesnt mean anything), there needs to be no explanation from you on how neo-colonialism and racism has affected many of my relatives and family members. The mere fact that I mentioned my ex was black american, is because I'm not a black american but rather from a mixed ancestry. Just because you sleep with a black person doesn't make you an expert on black people , that's the silliest thing I've heard. I feel sad for you hating your "race" (there is not a thing called race really, because we are all homo sapiens sapiens that parted to different parts of the world 100.000 years ago, hence our skin color and texture of hair changed according to where we moved to). The white race isnt inferior or superior to anyone and I wish one day you could come to an understanding that your white heritage isnt a bad thing, yes white people have done horrible things but not everyone.

The hatred towards hip hop music & rap is much deeper than you think though, because the white man (the establishment) fear the expression of anger and frustration from the youth who have been ignored and been seen as inferior for a long time. It's street poetry and teaches people all around the world, how it is to be at the bottom of everyone. Not all rappers are thugs and criminals, learn about hip hop before you talk about it. Nas for instance has a father who was a jazz musician but choice the path of rapping because that's where his heart was, Q-Tip and many other rappers discuss our society in many ways that no mainstream would do because they are afraid.

I'm aware there are people who dislike hiphop for various reasons, (I'm a musician myself) and I have some friends who play blues music who dislike it because of the sampling factor, but not because of the rappers. They just wish they could be more instrumental but then comes the question if music has to be done by an instrumentalist musician, because technically rappers are also instrumentalists because they use their voice just like singers do. But enough of this.

Most r&b music you hear today and the last 5 years or so, have been influenced by HOUSE & Electro and stupid euro-pop music so that's where your main focus should be on.

I'm not an expert on black people, white people, or any other people for that matter. But when you call someone a racist simply because they don't like a genre of music of all things that just happens to be made by black people, then you can get prepared to get your ass blown out of the water because even though you wouldn't know it from hearing the radio and media these days, shit hop is not the only form of black music. So hating shit hop does not mean hating black people.

And I said my own race hated me for years. Many of my own race still hate me today. As for me hating my own race, I've been there and done that but no more. The entire 1980s and half of the 1990s, I absolutely hated my own race not only for the way they treated the black race, but also for the way they treated me personally for having black friends. For years with me it was "black=good and white=bad". And you can thank shit hop for opening my eyes and making me stop hating my own race because it showed me that there are some black people who are also just as stupid, ignorant, hating, violent, homophobic, and just plain trashy as the rednecks that made my life hell growing up. I was then able to let some white people into my life and find out that there are some absolutely wonderful ones out there.

And as for R&B becoming more influenced by house or euro-pop these days, well then it sounds like it must be finally getting BETTER. I don't hear the house in it. As for the euro-pop or whatever it's called, it sounds more like trance to me which we used to call "white house" (the type of house that was played in the white gay clubs while the black gay clubs played house with a much more funky rhythmic feel to it). No, trance ain't my thing but if it's taking over R&B these days, that's much better than the stripped down slow tempoed "talking over a weak sounding beat" that shit hop is. That's only a small step though because it sounds like a mixture of both trance and shit hop. A bigger step would be no shit hop whatsoever in it.

I don't mind collaborations, but I do think unfortunately there is so little distinction these days, that r&b/soul really suffered. FINALLY there is now an official r&b chart on billboard, separating it from hip hop so that's a start! There are now 3 charts-r&b, rap and the usual combo of r&b/rap. Of course there is also the hot 100 that encompasses all popular music. I would like to see r&b artists have different sounds. I don't want to hear the same damn beats in every r&b and hip hop song

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SoulAlive said:

funkaholic1972 said:

Same here, I think 1986/87 had the last crumbles of the good RnB, then it died. Neo-Soul brought us some nice records though in the late 90's. That was about it...

The other night,I was listening to an oldies R&B station and they played three great R&B songs in a row:

"Love's Train" by Con Funk Shun

"Yearning For Your Love" by Gap Band

"Tell Me If You Still Care" by the SOS Band

and I was like,"damn...why can't today's R&B sound this good??!!" Those three songs are soulful,genuine and do not feature a trace of rap or hip-hop.

Contrary to popular belief,great R&B music can be made without using any hip-hop elements.

That's a good three song set right there but shit hop and neo stool has influenced even the oldies R&B stations. Unless it's an after midnight Quiet Storm set, back in the day you didn't hear more than maybe two or three slow jams in a row except when they broke down inbetween fast songs and the DJ would say "Let's slow it down for a moment". That's just it, back in the day, you only slowed it down for a moment. You didn't have the entire day dedicated to slow jams and then "speed it up for a moment". These days, it's the exact opposite. Remember the old folks with the picket signs mad at WKRP for changing it's format from classical to rock and the signs said "Play Something Slow". It's like I've said for years, music is going backwards instead of forwards. It used to be old people hollering "play something slow" but now it's young people instead. And it carries on over to the R&B oldies stations. There's one in my area, it's not an actual oldies station but it plays tons of oldies and the majority of them are slow. The only time they actually throwdown is on the lunchtime oldies hour during the week and on Saturday afternoons.

The oldies pop/rock stations aren't like that though. Their main problem is playing the same handful of songs over and over but their format isn't overrun by nothing but slow songs.

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Shard said:

neo stool

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neoretro7 said:

rialb said:

Some people, like me, would argue that nineties R & B was watered down and that "real" R & B in its purest form died out in the late seventies/early eighties.

The nineties music was still good though because artists were actually singing.

Who can ever forget Luther Vandross who also dominated the 90's and raise the standards back to days of the 70's era R&B.

I think 90's the real and last solid era of real R&B acts it started to change with gansta rap reach full popularity in the late 90s'

These were the artists that were still keeping ir real and 9 times out of 10 everbody on this forum knows one song by them.

Brian McKnight, Jodeci, Boyz II Men, Shanice, Toni Braxton, Brandy, Whitney Houston, Tamia, Kelly Price, Des'ree, Dionne Faris, Lucy Pearl, Mariah Carey, R Kelly, Tyrese, Deborah Cox, Kci & Jojo, Vanessa Williams, Tony!Toni!Tone!

I agree that R&b was doing pretty good in the 90s as that's when I was still listening to the radio. I believe it was around the early 2000s, that it started to die down from it's original/familiar sound. Even Patti LaBelle was still being played on the radio in the 90s, and you could add Erykah Badu to that list, but I think you could say she was just one of the first ones at the start of the neo-soul movement. I remmber being heavy into Luther Vandross in the 90s. All those you listed at the end of your post, I 100% agree. I see R&B making its way back somehow, because many are hungry for that type of sound again, and some of the current artists that are trying to emulate it, well, they're just not making it work. I sure miss the r&b that had me turning the radio on in the morning while getting ready for work. Now if I turn on the radio on a mainstream station, the music sounds like a circus, and I can't stand that electro-pop sound. It's just noise to me, not like real music that touches my soul or gives me chills.

[Edited 1/26/13 18:18pm]

ISF said:

neoretro7 said:

The nineties music was still good though because artists were actually singing.

Who can ever forget Luther Vandross who also dominated the 90's and raise the standards back to days of the 70's era R&B.

I think 90's the real and last solid era of real R&B acts it started to change with gansta rap reach full popularity in the late 90s'

I say in the late 90s Gangsta Rap was dying (mainstream) and the likes of Puffy & BadBoy took over with all their hip hop/R&B/pop crossover.

Puffy built his empire on the legacy of a murdered MC, who, along with another murdered MC, cemented the takeover of G-Rap.

De La warned us, we didn't listen.

neoretro7 said:

R&B/Soul music is fractured and not like what it used to be. I long for the days in the 90's when there was Boyz II Men, Brian McKnight, R Kelly, Toni Braxton, Babyface, Mariah Carey etc. That was R&B in it's purest form and all these artists became very popular and released unforgetable music that immortalizes their artistry.

Today's R&B is very fractured where it has lost it's identity. I think that there is tendency that since all R&B and Hip Hop is predominately encompassed of all black artists then therefore they have to combine it.I think today's R&B arists feel compelled to always have hip hop elements in the music and it does not make it sound like soul.

The neo-soul movement was sucessful even though it contained a little bit of hip hop elements it still maintained it's identity.

In order for r&B to still have relevance should R&B music divorce itself from hip hop music and focus on going back to doing real music with real instruments.

As with anything when something "sells" they jump on it, that really has been the case since soundscan came into play, not that everyone hasnt always wanted to SELL, the demand, and they day to day focus of it came because of soundscan, the whole Debut at Number one crap and platnum in a day, all that nonsense is the real cancer of the entire industry and honestly, at this point, MUSIC made its bed and now it has to lie in it, till it totally hits a point where its meaningless and valueless to the majority (which is very close) than there wont be a change.

As for the RB question that whole issue started in the 90's anyway, once rap started to have a commercial appeal everyone wanted to do a "collabo" and then every producer wanted to mix that into whatever they were doing, this is why you had groups like Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam all of a sudden having rap on their records? WTF is that, but thats the general idea. Once mixes caught on like Puffy and Mariah And Mary J etc....you had constant mixes because it was instant $$$, so you would have a normal album by say Brian Mcknight then you have someone come in and say, "look we need a single here" lets get so and so on this track to sell it, and there in lies the issue. And now because that was the way of the land, RB at this point has lost its SOUL, because SOUL has nothing to do with your "race" its got to with what you bring to the table.