ATLANTA, GA - AUGUST 10: Chris Brown performs during Chris Brown and Lil Baby "One Of Them Ones" Tour at Cellairis Amphitheatre at Lakewood on August 10, 2022 in Atlanta, Georgia.(Prince Williams/Wireimage)
Chris Brown isn’t here for the “R&B is dead” conversation on social media. On August 17, Diddy sparked days of talks about the genre after tweeting, “who killed R&B?” and following up with “what is your definition of R&B?”
Artists and producers, from Summer Walker and Tory Lanez to Hitmaka, responded to Diddy’s assumption that R&B is out of here. Chris took to his Instagram platform on August 20 to slam the talks and shift the blame to a lack of desire for real singers, lack of coverage, and ugliness.
“When’s the last time you heard a slow song on the radio,” Chris wrote on Instagram Story. “N—s saying R&B is dead…respectfully shut up. People nowadays want fast food instead of a real meal.”
Chris then shifted his rant to highlight the lack of media coverage on R&B.
“Don’t blame the real singers out here bekuz what channels do people have to see music videos. BET damn sure don’t. Neither does MTV,” Chris wrote.
Like Chris, Diddy also called out a public entity and their influence on the consumption and reward behind R&B. On August 19, he called out Billboard and their genre categorization.
“Now that I have your attention..I hope you all understand how important R&B is to our culture!! We need more love!! We need more soul,” Diddy wrote. In a separate tweet, he wrote, “@Billboard why was R&B and Hip-Hop put on the same chart to compete with each other? Can someone in charge over there explain to us WHY?!!”
Breezy also blamed the lack of digestible music on the market due to the music industry’s choices of stars.
“And then the industry be forcing s—t on people when the real music lovers know that s—t is garbage,” Chris wrote.
Along with his tweets, Diddy solicited conversations about the genre with famous artists and producers/writers. For example, he spoke to Tory Lanez, who disagreed that R&B is dead but said its culture is. Tory added that there seems to be the sentiment that R&B has to be “as raw and rugged” as what’s going on outside.
“Now it’s like this thing where it gotta be toxic. As the n—a who started and been doing this toxic s—t for about 8,9 years on the R&b, it don’t gotta be toxic my n—a. I wanna hear about love again. I feel like there’s not enough moments in R&B now.” He added, “it’s the culture of it that I think is dead.”
On August 19, Diddy also posted snippets of him discussing the genre with Summer Walker and Jermaine Dupri. Summer’s clip highlighted the current desire for shorter music versus the once traditional lengthy R&B songs.
“The time thing is really a thing. I’ve heard that a million times, ‘Oh Summer it’s too long, it’s too long.’ Like, I remember when songs back in the day was literally like six minutes long, five minutes long and it’s okay. I mean, if it’s f—ing music especially like let it go,” Summer said.
Meanwhile, Jermaine said the solution to R&B’s success is young artists who want to model what he, Puff Daddy, and other successful producers/artists have done.
“…The quarterbacks in the 90s was the n—s that was shielding the R&B and making sure that the R&B sounded and looked the way it was looking.”
However, HitMaka seemed to be closer to Chris Brown’s wave. One day after Diddy’s initial tweet about R&B, HitMaka blasted his words on Instagram and Twitter.
“Diddy done lost his whole damn mind talking bout R&B dead. It’s so much good R&B out if u can’t notice u gotta be outta touch,” HitMaka tweeted. “Stop trolling.”
He reposted the tweet to his Instagram page. He tagged multiple artists, including Chris Brown, H.E.R., Jazmine Sullivan, Tink, Jhene Aiko, Usher, Jeremih, Bryson Tiller, Summer Walker DVSN, and Silk Sonic.
“I feel u tho whatever to make the single go #1,” HitMaka wrote in his Instagram caption. “Is Gotta Move On bringing R&B back 2 life? #Respectfully”
Chris finished off his rant against the R&B conversation with what seemed like a little trolling.
“R&B ain’t dead…y’all n—s just ugly,” Chris wrote.
Within a few hours of Chris’s post, Diddy tweeted about the debate. He clarified that his message was meant out of love versus disrespect.
“It’s been 3 days of the debate…this is the clarity of the message…it’s not disrespect to anybody,” Diddy wrote. “This conversation was out of love and me purposely wanting to bring attention to R&B! It was something that I saw the effect of the hip-hop and R&B balance. That balance is honesty and realness when it comes together, melodies, vulnerability and most importantly LOVE!!!”
