phunkdaddy said:

missfee said:

I'm not feeling her new music at all. I hate when seasoned, talented artists abandon their loyal fan base to attract a new and younger fan base who really aren't paying attention to them anyway.

[Edited 9/5/17 4:23am]

Seems like that shit has extended to Ledisi too.

kitbradley said:

Shame that Bruno Mars is probably the only male singer I can think of who is releasing more traditional sounding R&B music that actually charts.

Why exactly is popular 2017 R&B supposed to sound like something from 20 or 30 years ago? Did Teddy Pendergrass, Midnight Star, and Luther Vandross sound like R&B from the 1940s & 1950s? No they didn't. Sounds change. Top 40 radio has always pretty much been geared towards a younger audience. They're the ones who were more likely to buy records especially singles or in todays case watch Youtube videos or stream. Millenials haven't lived in a world where hip hop has not existed, so that's where they're coming from. Mainstream popular R&B and hip hop has been blended together since the mid 1980s and especially after New Jack Swing blew up.

SoulAlive said:

I am a huge fan of Chante,but I think I'm just gonna continue to listen to and enjoy her first two albums those albums are incredible.I have a hard time getting into "today's R&B",especially when it has a lot of hip-hop elements in it.

Well you can always listen to southern soul like the acts on Malaco Records or Denise LaSalle & Bobby Rush, it doesn't change that much. Since I listen to hip hop, I can dig Chanté's new stuff. Anyway, she has released hip hop remixes since the beginning

MickyDolenz said:

kitbradley said:

Shame that Bruno Mars is probably the only male singer I can think of who is releasing more traditional sounding R&B music that actually charts.

Why exactly is popular 2017 R&B supposed to sound like something from 20 or 30 years ago? Did Teddy Pendergrass, Midnight Star, and Luther Vandross sound like R&B from the 1940s & 1950s? No they didn't. Sounds change. Top 40 radio has always pretty much been geared towards a younger audience. They're the ones who were more likely to buy records especially singles or in todays case watch Youtube videos or stream. Millenials haven't lived in a world where hip hop has not existed, so that's where they're coming from. Mainstream popular R&B and hip hop has been blended together since the mid 1980s and especially after New Jack Swing blew up.

No one expects 2017 R&B to sound like it exactly like it did in 1984. Just expect an artist like Ledisi and Chante Moore to stay in their lane and they can do that and modernize their sound without trying to blend their style with trap music. Erica Campbell took some heat from not just the gospel community but secular music fans as well for trying to blend gospel with trap music. Ledisi and Chante Moore are far from trap music and hip hop. I've never been much of a Freddie Jackson fan but he's always remained true to his R&B roots as far as I know even latter day albums when he wasn't a staple on radio no longer. Maxwell has never strayed from who he is as an artist and r&b fans respect him for it. Some artists can pull it off and try experimenting with different sounds without losing themselves but it just doesn't work for Chante. Those early Chante remixes you've posted I never heard of them until now. Thank God.

And it's not necessarily the artist themselves that's pushing the agenda of getting a hip hop

artist or style on the record it's more often than not the label.

I remember when Indie Arie recorded her single for I'm Not My Hair she recorded her version

for radio then the label basically forced her to do a mix of it with Akon an artist whom she admitted she wasn't into.

[Edited 9/5/17 23:28pm]

SoulAlive said:

phunkdaddy said:

missfee said: Seems like that shit has extended to Ledisi too.

really? Is she doing this type of music too?

Her latest single

^^People on this site can't make up their minds. If a veteran act does hip hop, house, or EDM, they don't like it. If they do Mel Waiters style songs (aka "grown folks music") like the Bar-Kays & Con Funk Shun have done on their recent stuff, they don't like it. Same if they release Rod Stewart style remake albums or if they do urban contemporary/adult R&B like Charlie Wilson. If Lionel Richie does country, they don't like it. I guess old acts just can't win. I've also seen people put down newer acts like Vintage Trouble, Robin Thicke, and Bruno Mars who have made retro sounding music saying they're "ripping off" some old act and can't get their own sound.

phunkdaddy said:

Erica Campbell took some heat from not just the gospel community but secular music fans as well for trying to blend gospel with trap music.

What's new about that? The gospel crowd complained about Andrae Crouch, The Clark Sisters, The Winans, Mighty Clouds Of Joy, BeBe & CeCe Winans, etc about thier sound. They complained about gospel singers like Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, & Amy Grant leaving gospel to do secular music or the "Devil's music". It was vice versa for Little Richard & Al Green who abandoned secular music at the height of their success to become preachers and release gospel records. Jazz purists said that George Benson sold out to do pop records, same when Miles Davis did fusion in the 1970s.

I just wish that R&B artists would record "real" R&B albums,you know? with some real instruments,NO trap beats and other hip hop elements!! Just a pure,genuinely soulful R&B album...what a concept,huh? As someone pointed out....these old school artists try all of these "new" sounds to appeal to a younger audience,but the young kids and teens ain't paying attention to them anyway,lol.It's a wasted effort.

MickyDolenz said:

SoulAlive said:

I am a huge fan of Chante,but I think I'm just gonna continue to listen to and enjoy her first two albums those albums are incredible.I have a hard time getting into "today's R&B",especially when it has a lot of hip-hop elements in it.

Well you can always listen to southern soul like the acts on Malaco Records or Denise LaSalle & Bobby Rush, it doesn't change that much. Since I listen to hip hop, I can dig Chanté's new stuff. Anyway, she has released hip hop remixes since the beginning

This is the result of record companies trying to increase sales and expose her to a younger audience I'm OK with that,as long as the actual album is soulful and classy (which her first two albums certainly were).

I remember when Frankie Beverly was pissed at his record company when they released a 'best of' CD featuring a hip-hop remix of one of the songs (I think it was "Before I Let Go"?).He did NOT approve of it at all,lol.Record companies are sneaky like this.They only care about profits.

yeah I remember this She actually demanded that her record company (Motown) remove the remix from all future pressings of the album.She was no fan of Akon,lol.

phunkdaddy said:

I remember when Indie Arie recorded her single for I'm Not My Hair she recorded her version

for radio then the label basically forced her to do a mix of it with Akon an artist whom she admitted she wasn't into.

SoulAlive said:

I just wish that R&B artists would record "real" R&B albums,you know? with some real instruments,NO trap beats and other hip hop elements!! Just a pure,genuinely soulful R&B album...what a concept,huh? As someone pointed out....these old school artists try all of these "new" sounds to appeal to a younger audience,but the young kids and teens ain't paying attention to them anyway,lol.It's a wasted effort.

Like Prince said about people telling him they want him to do his old sound, they can listen to those old records. Some people are still complaining about Mariah Carey doing songs with rappers, when she has said she listened to hip hop and her early albums were more what Tommy Mattola wanted, than what she was about. Mariah said the label didn't want her to do the song with ODB, she asked him to collaborate. Sade Adu also said she liked hip hop and that can be heard in Sade's later records. All of Michael Jackson's later albums had rappers on them. The album version of Chante's Love's Taken Over has a hip hop influenced beat. It's not a remix. That's probably why that's her most known song.

This song by New Edition went #1 in 2016 on Billboard's adult R&B chart. There's no hip hop sounds in it and NE is one of the first acts to combine R&B and rap.

When rap first came out, some R&B and pop acts did something with it like Stevie Wonder, Blondie, Millie Jackson, Johnny Guitar Watson, Wham!, Falco, Big Audio Dynamite, Teena Marie, Bohannon, Tom Tom Club, etc. Wham!'s first single was Wham Rap. Fatback Band is credited with releasing one of the first recorded rap songs with King Tim III. That wasn't because of any record label prodding because most hip hop was on small indie labels at the time and many radio stations did not play rap in the beginning. So that must be because the acts liked it and maybe wanted their fans to know about it. Kurtis Blow was signed to a major and he said Mercury didn't know how to promote him.

MickyDolenz said: