MickyDolenz said:

Scorp said:

I particularly enjoyed what u said about other countries making their own music for there own culture of people which is the way it should be, or at least to the point where people are in position to control the output

That doesn't make any sense. Not every one in a country or even a ethnicity has a common culture. If you go to Nigeria, they don't all do the same things, nor do people in Russia. There is no common culture for all of Africa which is majority black people, so what does "black culture" even mean? Do black people in Brazil do the same things as ones in Canada? If there is a common black culture, then hip hop could have been created by black people who were millionaires and listened to classical, just as well as street kids in NYC who rapped over disco and funk songs. What about places where the government controls or censors the entertainment and media? They determine whatever culture is for their country.

There is 'Black Culture' , as termed in a 'general sense'. Please do not diminish it or toss it as though it has no value. Black culture, as a whole has existed, and is as ancient as the world. Black culture does not mean that all those who identify with 'Black African/Black Americans/Black Caribbean' culture(s), etc. are all alike and embrace the same things.. When one speaks of Black music in a general sense, it's more or less referencing Black American music familiar among/familiar to Black Americans, i.e. Blue, rap, hip-hop, funk music, r&b, the birth of rock and roll from r&b, etc. Music you would mostly hear among Black American communities. Again, doesn't mean all Blacks in a general sense, whether African-born, born in the U.S. or Caribbean, like/listen/embrace the same types of music. By the way, rap/hip-hop was born out of the Black community<- A little research doesn't hurt. Truth be told, I miss the r&b of back in the day, the soul of it, not the bs, manufactured crap that Robin Thicke, J. Timberlake, and to add insult to injury-the Bieber fake r&b radio plays/promote. There are so many talented Black artists who are being passed over for the crap the industry calls 'talent' today.

http://www.history.com/th...-the-bronx

Here's a portion of the article;you can click on the link to read the rest:

"Like any style of music, hip hop has roots in other forms, and its evolution was shaped by many different artists, but there's a case to be made that it came to life precisely on this day in 1973, at a birthday party in the recreation room of an apartment building in the west Bronx, New York City. The location of that birthplace was 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, and the man who presided over that historic party was the birthday girl's brother, Clive Campbell—better known to history as DJ Kool Herc, founding father of hip hop.

Born and raised to the age of 10 in Kingston, Jamaica, DJ Kool Herc began spinning records at parties and between sets his father's band played while he was a teenager in the Bronx in the early 1970s. Herc often emulated the style of Jamaican "selectors" (DJs) by "toasting" (i.e., talking) over the records he spun, but his historical significance has nothing to do with rapping. Kool Herc's contribution to hip hop was even more fundamental."

(Click on link above to continue reading)

http://www.hiphop-network...hiphop.asp

The History Of Rap: Vol. 1: The Genesis

"In the early 1970s a musical genre was born in the crime-ridden neighborhoods of the South Bronx. Gifted teenagers with plenty of imagination but little cash began to forge a new style from spare parts. Hip-hop, as it was then known, was a product of pure streetwise ingenuity; extracting rhythms and melodies from existing records and mixing them up with searing poetry chronicling life in the 'hood, hip-hop spilled out of the ghetto.

From the housing projects hip-hop poured onto the streets and subways, taking root in Bronx clubs like the Savoy Manor Ballroom, Ecstasy Garage, Club 371, The Disco Fever, and the T-Connection. From there it spread downtown to the Renaissance Ballroom, Hotel Diplomat, the Roxy, and The Fun House. It migrated to Los Angeles, where a whole West Coast hip-hop scene developed, sporting its own musical idiosyncrasies, its own wild style.

Through television shows like BET's Rap City and Yo! MTV Raps and a succession of Hollywood movies, hip-hop gained millions of new fans across America, in places far removed from the genre's Bronx roots. It spread to Europe, Asia, Africa, and nearly every continent on Earth, gaining more cultural significance as the years rolled by. Today it is one of the most potent and successful musical forms of the 20th Century."

(Click on link to continue reading)

[Edited 2/23/14 13:39pm]

BlaqueKnight said:

Hip-hop was born on the streets of NY and there is nowhere else and no one else that could have birthed it other than the community that did. It was created by black Americans FOR black Americans and if it had never made any money,

If there is a "Black American culture", then it could have been created by any blacks anyplace in the US, not just only in New York. It's also not true it was created by black Americans only, there was some Latino input too and people from Jamaica who immigrated to NYC from their toasting & dancehall. Kool Herc & Grandmaster Flash are from Jamaica and Barbados. Afrika Bambaataa is a US born Jamaican. So why isn't it "Jamaican culture" then? Could it have happened without Jamaican music influence? Could it have happened with Black Americans from France or Ethiopia or rich Black Americans? It was said that part of the reason turntablism started is because youth in NYC couldn't afford musical instruments, and the same thing happened years later with relatively cheap instruments like drum machines, Casio keyboards, & samplers that didn't take as long to learn. So hip hop might have come from "Black Americans", but not just any black people in the US from anywhere. It didn't come from a shared culture that every single black person in the US had, just like there isn't a shared white culture. Poor white people in the Appalachian Mountains don't have the same culture as white middle class people in a suburb. A Jew and an Italian are both usually white, but Italians are generally not in the Judiasm religion. Unlike what some Afrocentric people think, there isn't one way to be "Black" that is the right way, like having natural hair instead of permed hair or that if you don't speak in Ebonics, like "white music", don't like basketball & don't wear sagging pants, then you're not really "Black". All that stuff is taught.

MickyDolenz said:

BlaqueKnight said:

Hip-hop was born on the streets of NY and there is nowhere else and no one else that could have birthed it other than the community that did. It was created by black Americans FOR black Americans and if it had never made any money,

If there is a "Black American culture", then it could have been created by any blacks anyplace in the US, not just only in New York. It's also not true it was created by black Americans only, there was some Latino input too and people from Jamaica who immigrated to NYC from their toasting & dancehall. Kool Herc & Grandmaster Flash are from Jamaica and Barbados. Afrika Bambaataa is a US born Jamaican. So why isn't it "Jamaican culture" then? Could it have happened without Jamaican music influence? Could it have happened with Black Americans from France or Ethiopia or rich Black Americans? It was said that part of the reason turntablism started is because youth in NYC couldn't afford musical instruments, and the same thing happened years later with relatively cheap instruments like drum machines, Casio keyboards, & samplers that didn't take as long to learn. So hip hop might have come from "Black Americans", but not just any black people in the US from anywhere. It didn't come from a shared culture that every single black person in the US had, just like there isn't a shared white culture. Poor white people in the Appalachian Mountains don't have the same culture as white middle class people in a suburb. A Jew and an Italian are both usually white, but Italians are generally not in the Judiasm religion. Unlike what some Afrocentric people think, there isn't one way to be "Black" that is the right way, like having natural hair instead of permed hair or that if you don't speak in Ebonics, like "white music", don't like basketball & don't wear sagging pants, then you're not really "Black". All that stuff is taught.

There is a 'Black American' culture dude. Within Black American culture you will find many with Black Caribbean roots/heritage, and African immigrants who assimilated into Black American culture. It doesn't mean there is one characteristic of Black culture as a whole or Black American culture. Black American culture, in its 'various' forms, is no different from Irish or Italian immigrants, who come here, become Americans, and assimilate/relate to 'White culture' as a whole, but doesn't mean all Italians or Irish, embrace/practice their cultures the same way. By the way 'all' cultures are taught, that's why they become cultures, and they are 'valued' as such.

[Edited 2/25/14 8:22am]

Mainstream R&B has been a bunch of bullshit since the 1990s so why should today be any different? I'd be happy to watch it just completely die altogether and hopefully a completely new genre with absolutely no 1990s and 2000s influences with a completely different sound might possibly emerge.

vainandy said:

I still think the problem is non-music people infiltrating and running music centric companies. People that can't tell a sax from a trumpet deserve no place in any music based company.

.

FUCK big business and all it's parasitic ways. It won't stop til it's ruined all culture unless we do something about it.

.

And while we're there, keep that shit out of education, but that's for P&R......

2elijah said:

vainandy said:

Mainstream R&B has been a bunch of bullshit since the 1990s so why should today be any different? I'd be happy to watch it just completely die altogether and hopefully a completely new genre with absolutely no 1990s and 2000s influences with a completely different sound might possibly emerge.

Mainstream rnb is now White artists, backed by black backup singers or dancers or using white pop artists with black rappers or hip-hop artists, to sell cds/singles and to seem cool.

As far as I'm concerned, mainstream R&B has been white music even when the so-called artists were all black from the 1990s up until today. When you've got an entire genre of mainstream music that never gets faster than midtempo and has no funky rhythm whatsoever, that sounds about as "white" to me as you can possibly get considering that if black people had never made an impact on music in this country, the entire nation would still be listening to traditionally white genres such as classical. The majority of black music wasn't dull and rhythmless like this back in the 1980s when it was mainly listened to by black people only and a small handful of cool white people who dared to listen to it.

Katy Perry is so hot to me.I would drink her bath water!!!!

Her song "Dark Horse" with Juicy J. Which is the in thing now! Put a hot pop singer with a black rapper.Its a guaranteed hit! It stays in rotation @ Kco0L-Fm...

vainandy said:

Mainstream R&B has been a bunch of bullshit since the 1990s so why should today be any different? I'd be happy to watch it just completely die altogether and hopefully a completely new genre with absolutely no 1990s and 2000s influences with a completely different sound might possibly emerge.

Now Andy, you can't tell me that Jenny Hud's new song I Can't Describe don't sound like its straight out of the 80s..almost.

When I heard it, it took me back to songs like Evelyn Champagne King's I'm In Love and Cheryl Lynne's Encore .

I'm just saying that the songs are out there but radio will never be the same. They will never bring them to you like they used to. You have to go find them now and there is a lot less to choose from these days. Still, it exists.

[Edited 2/24/14 12:32pm]

There is no preservation of the "legends" anymore in any genre. When MTV and BET played videos they actually didnt just play the same shit that was on the radio they played old classic videos, new videos, rare videos. Radio the same thing, today, a radio station is programmed to a 10 to 15 song playlist that a COMMITTEE in a room is played 7 seconds of too, they then vote on what goes on that playlist. Like LL said "If he is so hot, why is our culture frozen" you can apply that pretty much round to almost all the genres, the only one right now that i feel, though im not into it, is metal and hard rock, ONE because of shows like "That Metal Show" that cater to new bands and OLD ONES THAT ARE STILL BREATHING and recording. Also labels like Sanctuary which handle releases by OLDER acts that still want to record and not be laundry list nostalgia acts like some artists do.

No offense but when I hear black people complaining that they're losing Hip-Hop or R&B I think about white people that complain that they're losing their country because there are now too many minorities in the US. I don't have much sympathy for these lines of thinking.

vainandy said:

2elijah said:

vainandy said: Mainstream rnb is now White artists, backed by black backup singers or dancers or using white pop artists with black rappers or hip-hop artists, to sell cds/singles and to seem cool.

As far as I'm concerned, mainstream R&B has been white music even when the so-called artists were all black from the 1990s up until today. When you've got an entire genre of mainstream music that never gets faster than midtempo and has no funky rhythm whatsoever, that sounds about as "white" to me as you can possibly get considering that if black people had never made an impact on music in this country, the entire nation would still be listening to traditionally white genres such as classical. The majority of black music wasn't dull and rhythmless like this back in the 1980s when it was mainly listened to by black people only and a small handful of cool white people who dared to listen to it.

It's definitely not the same prior to the 90s, although there was still som Black r&b singers' music being played on the radio. Mainstream r&b killed the raw sound of r&b, but there are still plenty of Black r&b artists out there whose sound I enjoy. Leela James, doesn't get much recognition. Marcia Ambrosius (esp) I kind of like her sound too. There are many more and I'm not giving up on them, regardless if radio/music industry ignores them or not. I actually find a lot of independent artists that are not that well known on youtube, and of course I still love the music of the 70s/80s era .

[Edited 2/24/14 18:06pm]

BlaqueKnight said:

vainandy said:

Mainstream R&B has been a bunch of bullshit since the 1990s so why should today be any different? I'd be happy to watch it just completely die altogether and hopefully a completely new genre with absolutely no 1990s and 2000s influences with a completely different sound might possibly emerge.

Now Andy, you can't tell me that Jenny Hud's new song I Can't Describe don't sound like its straight out of the 80s..almost.

When I heard it, it took me back to songs like Evelyn Champagne King's I'm In Love and Cheryl Lynne's Encore .

I'm just saying that the songs are out there but radio will never be the same. They will never bring them to you like they used to. You have to go find them now and there is a lot less to choose from these days. Still, it exists.

[Edited 2/24/14 12:32pm]

I live for that song. Got me together everytime it come on. Hopefully r&b will emerge back to funk and mainstream hip hop will just be as underground as black bands funking it up are

BlaqueKnight said:

vainandy said:

Mainstream R&B has been a bunch of bullshit since the 1990s so why should today be any different? I'd be happy to watch it just completely die altogether and hopefully a completely new genre with absolutely no 1990s and 2000s influences with a completely different sound might possibly emerge.

Now Andy, you can't tell me that Jenny Hud's new song I Can't Describe don't sound like its straight out of the 80s..almost.

When I heard it, it took me back to songs like Evelyn Champagne King's I'm In Love and Cheryl Lynne's Encore .

I'm just saying that the songs are out there but radio will never be the same. They will never bring them to you like they used to. You have to go find them now and there is a lot less to choose from these days. Still, it exists.

[Edited 2/24/14 12:32pm]

Actually, one of my facebook friends, daprettyman, hipped me to that one when I said that when it came to current singers, Jennifer Hudson had a good voice but needed to do better types of music with her voice and I suggested that she should do more stuff like the uptempo song she did in the movie "Dreamgirls". He posted the song you're talking about. It sounds pretty decent for a new song. She needs to get rid of that motherfucker that's doing that stupid "talking" on the song though.

paisleypark4 said:

BlaqueKnight said:

Now Andy, you can't tell me that Jenny Hud's new song I Can't Describe don't sound like its straight out of the 80s..almost.

When I heard it, it took me back to songs like Evelyn Champagne King's I'm In Love and Cheryl Lynne's Encore .

I'm just saying that the songs are out there but radio will never be the same. They will never bring them to you like they used to. You have to go find them now and there is a lot less to choose from these days. Still, it exists.

[Edited 2/24/14 12:32pm]

I live for that song. Got me together everytime it come on. Hopefully r&b will emerge back to funk and mainstream hip hop will just be as underground as black bands funking it up are

Love that Hudson song!

paisleypark4 said:

BlaqueKnight said:

Now Andy, you can't tell me that Jenny Hud's new song I Can't Describe don't sound like its straight out of the 80s..almost.

When I heard it, it took me back to songs like Evelyn Champagne King's I'm In Love and Cheryl Lynne's Encore .

I'm just saying that the songs are out there but radio will never be the same. They will never bring them to you like they used to. You have to go find them now and there is a lot less to choose from these days. Still, it exists.

[Edited 2/24/14 12:32pm]

I live for that song. Got me together everytime it come on. Hopefully r&b will emerge back to funk and mainstream hip hop will just be as underground as black bands funking it up are

It has a nice 80s vibe. It's just funny no one wants to let go of the whole early 80s influenced sound. We should be on the 90s sound by now or least new jack swing.

lezama said:

No offense but when I hear black people complaining that they're losing Hip-Hop or R&B I think about white people that complain that they're losing their country because there are now too many minorities in the US. I don't have much sympathy for these lines of thinking.

Sympathy? Black folks don't need no damn sympathy. What black people need is for certain whites to stop LYING and STEALING but that's not gonna happen. Black people made that music Justin is singing over. Black people made that music Robin is singing over. That pop shit they are doing is R&B EXTRA LITE and black people know full well that it is. Black folks are just sick of the lies, like that's all that's out there and black folks are sick of racism by omission, which is commonplace and acceptable in our current American culture. So, a couple of white guys made some music "in the style of" R&B. Congradulations. Its not "the best R&B out there" because a white guy did it but mainstreamers exclude the root culture and declare it amongst themselves and shout it on every tv station across the world so that it LOOKS like a victory. Its not. Its just another lie. No surprises there.

The complaint about country is moot. There would be no country music without the blues, yet black people lay no claim to country nor try to dominate it. Black people don't declare themselves "the best country artists" via awards, etc. Black people have a problem with having their culture comandeered as does anyone else. The truth is that whites in the U.S. feel that they own all culture that is here and because they owned black ancestors, they feel entitled to a piece of any culture that is born and bred on U.S. soil, which was stolen from the Native people. But, back to current times. Black folk don't need sympathy. How about a little honesty, justice and proper dues? I guess that's too much to ask when you're robbing a people.

Let me out of this crazy ass thread.

"How dare they complain that we're excluding them when we're excluding them!"

BlaqueKnight said:

lezama said:

No offense but when I hear black people complaining that they're losing Hip-Hop or R&B I think about white people that complain that they're losing their country because there are now too many minorities in the US. I don't have much sympathy for these lines of thinking.

Sympathy? Black folks don't need no damn sympathy. What black people need is for certain whites to stop LYING and STEALING but that's not gonna happen. Black people made that music Justin is singing over. Black people made that music Robin is singing over. That pop shit they are doing is R&B EXTRA LITE and black people know full well that it is. Black folks are just sick of the lies, like that's all that's out there and black folks are sick of racism by omission, which is commonplace and acceptable in our current American culture. So, a couple of white guys made some music "in the style of" R&B. Congradulations. Its not "the best R&B out there" because a white guy did it but mainstreamers exclude the root culture and declare it amongst themselves and shout it on every tv station across the world so that it LOOKS like a victory. Its not. Its just another lie. No surprises there.

The complaint about country is moot. There would be no country music without the blues, yet black people lay no claim to country nor try to dominate it. Black people don't declare themselves "the best country artists" via awards, etc. Black people have a problem with having their culture comandeered as does anyone else. The truth is that whites in the U.S. feel that they own all culture that is here and because they owned black ancestors, they feel entitled to a piece of any culture that is born and bred on U.S. soil, which was stolen from the Native people. But, back to current times. Black folk don't need sympathy. How about a little honesty, justice and proper dues? I guess that's too much to ask when you're robbing a people.

Let me out of this crazy ass thread.

"How dare they complain that we're excluding them when we're excluding them!"

I hear what you're saying, but I'm more of the feeling that the black artists should feel honored that the mainstream wants to appropriate their sound and music. Imitation is the highest form of flattery. I don't see white artists appropriating latin music.

lezama said:

BlaqueKnight said:

Sympathy? Black folks don't need no damn sympathy. What black people need is for certain whites to stop LYING and STEALING but that's not gonna happen. Black people made that music Justin is singing over. Black people made that music Robin is singing over. That pop shit they are doing is R&B EXTRA LITE and black people know full well that it is. Black folks are just sick of the lies, like that's all that's out there and black folks are sick of racism by omission, which is commonplace and acceptable in our current American culture. So, a couple of white guys made some music "in the style of" R&B. Congradulations. Its not "the best R&B out there" because a white guy did it but mainstreamers exclude the root culture and declare it amongst themselves and shout it on every tv station across the world so that it LOOKS like a victory. Its not. Its just another lie. No surprises there.

The complaint about country is moot. There would be no country music without the blues, yet black people lay no claim to country nor try to dominate it. Black people don't declare themselves "the best country artists" via awards, etc. Black people have a problem with having their culture comandeered as does anyone else. The truth is that whites in the U.S. feel that they own all culture that is here and because they owned black ancestors, they feel entitled to a piece of any culture that is born and bred on U.S. soil, which was stolen from the Native people. But, back to current times. Black folk don't need sympathy. How about a little honesty, justice and proper dues? I guess that's too much to ask when you're robbing a people.

Let me out of this crazy ass thread.

"How dare they complain that we're excluding them when we're excluding them!"

I hear what you're saying, but I'm more of the feeling that the black artists should feel honored that the mainstream wants to appropriate their sound and music. Imitation is the highest form of flattery. I don't see white artists appropriating latin music.

they are not honoring the music, they are capatilizing on it was so rich in sound....

I have to admit that when it comes to black music in general I've lost interest in the late 1990's. The only music I listen prior to 1975 is jazz and the main styles of music I listen from 1975 to 1995 are funk, new jack swing and hip-hop, but for the last 10-15 years I find R&B and hip-hop to be just... always the same. I get some nice surprises every once in a while (OutKast, Common, Blackalicious, Chromeo, The Foreign Exchange, The Internet and Ursula Rucker come to mind), and I still get a listen to new albums by old artists and new acts that I hear of, and enjoy some of them moderately, but it's quite rare that I'm really enthusiastic about what I hear.

On the other hand it's not that I'm becoming an old prick, because I've been totally fascinated by the electroclash and new synthpop explosions of these last 10 years, and all genres mixed I listen and enjoy dozens of new albums every year. But for some reason afro-american music seem to have lost its capacity to renew itself somewhere in the late 90's, after almost a century of dynamically reinventing itself every 5 or 10 years!!!

Apart from its surviving veterans, funk is dead. The only innovative jazz musicians of the last 15 years are white and europeans (who mix jazz with experimental, contemporary, electronic and/or world music). Rap has become a cold, tasteless caricature of its past self that's obsessed by gansta lifestyle and sex. And as for R&B, it has nothing better to do than emulating classic soul formulas that go back to the 60's, 70's or 90's (depending on the artists' particular tastes).

Sad but true

I do not know why these artists and music industry insiders never acknowledge the real reason behind this issue. I think the industry pays these artists to make these safe/b.s. comments. The Industry does not want black artists making R&B music, period. They only want to market a manufactured imitation of black music done by any other race besides African American.Traditonal R&B is a genre that does not exist anymore in today's industry. They do not give these black r&b artists opportunities to cross over and to be successful. They want it like this and it is not those R&B artists fault. What these black artists should do is stop selling their soul to the industry for a buck and take a stand for their own music instead of covering up for the industry with safe/b.s. comments. These young artists do not care about dignity and respect, they just care about money.

mjscarousal said:

I do not know why these artists and music industry insiders never acknowledge the real reason behind this issue. I think the industry pays these artists to make these safe/b.s. comments. The Industry does not want black artists making R&B music, period. They only want to market a manufactured imitation of black music done by any other race besides African American.Traditonal R&B is a genre that does not exist anymore in today's industry. They do not give these black r&b artists opportunities to cross over and to be successful. They want it like this and it is not those R&B artists fault. What these black artists should do is stop selling their soul to the industry for a buck and take a stand for their own music instead of covering up for the industry with safe/b.s. comments. These young artists do not care about dignity and respect, they just care about money.

beautiful points

mjscarousal said:

I do not know why these artists and music industry insiders never acknowledge the real reason behind this issue. I think the industry pays these artists to make these safe/b.s. comments. The Industry does not want black artists making R&B music, period. They only want to market a manufactured imitation of black music done by any other race besides African American.Traditonal R&B is a genre that does not exist anymore in today's industry. They do not give these black r&b artists opportunities to cross over and to be successful. They want it like this and it is not those R&B artists fault. What these black artists should do is stop selling their soul to the industry for a buck and take a stand for their own music instead of covering up for the industry with safe/b.s. comments. These young artists do not care about dignity and respect, they just care about money.

That could be the case with someone like Ronald Isley and Charlie Wilson who are older artists who are complete sellouts these days. But with these younger so-called artists, shit hop and neo stool has dominated R&B since the 1990s, they were born into and have grown up on this bullshit music their entire lifetime, it's all they know, and they actually like what they're making.

nd33 said:

Is it not ironic that the biggest single last year (apart from maybe Royals) sounded 100% like classic r&b?!

.

Why are the big R&B artists doing music that sounds more like EDM than R&B?

.

Surely "Blurred Lines" proved a hole in the market for R&B being promoted as singles?

R&B was in the EDM game long before the initials were used to represent all of electronic dance music. You need only to go back to disco's dying breath in late-1980 and early-1981, when synth-pop, synth-funk and new wave took over, and the sounds of NYC garage, freestyle and Chicago house came to the forefront. Afrika Bambaataa, Shannon and Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam were among the few who led the way (at least, here in NYC)...

...Which, by no small measure, can be attributed to the granddaddies of EDM, KRAFTWERK!

CookyMonzta said:

nd33 said:

Is it not ironic that the biggest single last year (apart from maybe Royals) sounded 100% like classic r&b?!

.

Why are the big R&B artists doing music that sounds more like EDM than R&B?

.

Surely "Blurred Lines" proved a hole in the market for R&B being promoted as singles?

R&B was in the EDM game long before the initials were used to represent all of electronic dance music. You need only to go back to disco's dying breath in late-1980 and early-1981, when synth-pop, synth-funk and new wave took over, and the sounds of NYC garage, freestyle and Chicago house came to the forefront. Afrika Bambaataa, Shannon and Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam were among the few who led the way (at least, here in NYC)...

...Which, by no small measure, can be attributed to the granddaddies of EDM, KRAFTWERK!

.

I'm well aware of the electro influenced funk and hip hop of the 80's. I'm more talking about straight R&B.

.

What I'm really meaning by the EDM influence, is the four on the floor kick combined with complete lack of syncopation, lack of basslines, lack of emotive chord progressions.

.

The R&B when I was growing up (80's/90's) was all about lush chord arrangements and melodies, delivered with heartfelt vocal performances...

.

It's like someone said "let's take the most cliche parts of EDM and add it to R&B!" and those type of songs seem to have had priority in getting pushed by the labels over the last few years. A major dumbing down IMO.

.

I'm sure some of the newer singers are really good, but the material they're performing has been lacklustre.

nd33 said:

CookyMonzta said:

R&B was in the EDM game long before the initials were used to represent all of electronic dance music. You need only to go back to disco's dying breath in late-1980 and early-1981, when synth-pop, synth-funk and new wave took over, and the sounds of NYC garage, freestyle and Chicago house came to the forefront. Afrika Bambaataa, Shannon and Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam were among the few who led the way (at least, here in NYC)...

...Which, by no small measure, can be attributed to the granddaddies of EDM, KRAFTWERK!

.

I'm well aware of the electro influenced funk and hip hop of the 80's. I'm more talking about straight R&B.

.

What I'm really meaning by the EDM influence, is the four on the floor kick combined with complete lack of syncopation, lack of basslines, lack of emotive chord progressions.

.

The R&B when I was growing up (80's/90's) was all about lush chord arrangements and melodies, delivered with heartfelt vocal performances...

.

It's like someone said "let's take the most cliche parts of EDM and add it to R&B!" and those type of songs seem to have had priority in getting pushed by the labels over the last few years. A major dumbing down IMO.

.

I'm sure some of the newer singers are really good, but the material they're performing has been lacklustre.

EDM has to be left out of this. It was a genre that took from black music who got it back then gave it back then got it back etc., and everyone was winning at this trade for years. The coldness of current R&B and hip-hop, if u ask me, has to do with a cultural trend that means to sell teens a cynical POV of life: guns, sex, drugs and emotional coldness. It's got nothing to do with any musical culture, it's a way for majors to bank on teengers being easily impressed and influenced the same way they used to bank on their romantic feelings with silly romantic songs back in the 60's, 70's and 80's. Don't blame any musical movement, blame the cynism of majors and whoever supports them (radios, TV channels, etc.)

databank said:

EDM has to be left out of this. It was a genre that took from black music who got it back then gave it back then got it back etc., and everyone was winning at this trade for years. The coldness of current R&B and hip-hop, if u ask me, has to do with a cultural trend that means to sell teens a cynical POV of life: guns, sex, drugs and emotional coldness. It's got nothing to do with any musical culture, it's a way for majors to bank on teengers being easily impressed and influenced the same way they used to bank on their romantic feelings with silly romantic songs back in the 60's, 70's and 80's. Don't blame any musical movement, blame the cynism of majors and whoever supports them (radios, TV channels, etc.)

THIS...RIGHT...HERE!

databank said:

nd33 said:

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I'm well aware of the electro influenced funk and hip hop of the 80's. I'm more talking about straight R&B.

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What I'm really meaning by the EDM influence, is the four on the floor kick combined with complete lack of syncopation, lack of basslines, lack of emotive chord progressions.

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The R&B when I was growing up (80's/90's) was all about lush chord arrangements and melodies, delivered with heartfelt vocal performances...

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It's like someone said "let's take the most cliche parts of EDM and add it to R&B!" and those type of songs seem to have had priority in getting pushed by the labels over the last few years. A major dumbing down IMO.

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I'm sure some of the newer singers are really good, but the material they're performing has been lacklustre.

EDM has to be left out of this. It was a genre that took from black music who got it back then gave it back then got it back etc., and everyone was winning at this trade for years. The coldness of current R&B and hip-hop, if u ask me, has to do with a cultural trend that means to sell teens a cynical POV of life: guns, sex, drugs and emotional coldness. It's got nothing to do with any musical culture, it's a way for majors to bank on teengers being easily impressed and influenced the same way they used to bank on their romantic feelings with silly romantic songs back in the 60's, 70's and 80's. Don't blame any musical movement, blame the cynism of majors and whoever supports them (radios, TV channels, etc.)

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I agree with you that mainstream R&B is also lyrically redundant (as well as musically IMO).

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The whole thing is in a damn rut.

I thought J*Davey was going to head the next wave of rnb. They were a sucessful mix of EDM and RnB.

I don't know what happend to them.