Aretha Franklin

?

in 90s mona lisa have a second lost album called "Gett'n It On" but never released. but 2006, she been working a new album called "Reckless" but it never release yet. here is tracklist for her album. Reckless, Softer Side, Get On My Levels, Someone like you, Fever, All I Know feat. Jimi Kendrix, We Can Fly but other song that never been found yet in 2024.

SZA recently did an interview and shared that she believes she’s only placed in the R&B category because she’s black, not because she makes R&B music & how being typecasted in that role feels reductive. Me & my friends got to talking about it and we ended up talking about why artists don’t want to be boxed into R&B anymore as if the genre is dying out.

My theory is that R&B artists don’t make music that “hypes people up”anymore for lack of a better term. I believe Chris Brown, Usher, & even Ciara were able to remain at the top of the genre because they produced music you wanna hear in the club or music that you dance to when you hear it in the car. At the top of their careers they were able to infuse other genres that were popular into R&B - i.e. Dance, Pop, Trap, etc. Music that makes you move. But currently a large portion of R&B feels like it doesn’t go over 80-90 bpm. I personally love this type of slow music but when I think of R&B songs that gained traction in recent years they have been upbeat. Chris Brown - No Guidance/Go Crazy, Usher - Hey Daddy, Kehlani - Distraction, Summer Walker - Body, Ella Mai - Boo’d Up, even some slower songs like Trip or Snooze but the point is that these are songs that people get addicted to because of the way they want to dance when they hear it or the way it makes them feel.

Male R&B artists have been chasing fame by using the same melancholy R&B sound that The Weeknd & Partynextdoor found fame from, and it’s worked for Giveon, Brent, Bryson, Lucky Daye, DVSN, they popular but not so much outside of the R&B community. Even Post Malone has been successfully but I don’t know if he is considered an R&B act - but his songs have done very well for the general public.

SZA being one of the frontrunners for R&B and publicly saying she’s typecasted in the role kind of hurt me because while she leans more alternative R&B & is very explorative of other genres in her music, it feels to me like she has R&B roots & I was loving watching how far she’s taken (and is still taking) the genre. Even though I said the club banger is what’s missing for R&B and I wouldn’t say she has any.

SZA has found her own lane and her own success through that. As for other artists, continuing to make the same type of music is what’s reductive, not necessarily the genre. What do you guys think?

Here are my three.

Michael Jackson

Phyllis Human

Sam Cooker

Imo two of the best albums from a great RNB singer, James Ingram. One is It’s Your Night with some solid tracks like She Loves Me, There’s No Easy Way and How Do You Keep The Music Playing. The other album is It’s Real with my all time fave song of his, I Don’t Have The Heart.

I’ll start with David Ruffin. A voice with so much soul and conviction that, to me, is hard to replace and duplicate.

https://on.soundcloud.com/zPGSFk6EfNQz9tMW8

​