Ninetales

Can you elaborate on this? Like I cant see any evidence that this is even remotely true.

Frank Ocean and The Weeknd are black last time I checked and are doing very well for themselves popularity wise.

djchameleon

They are pretty much New Wave R&B again not traditional R&B.

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Ninetales

This just sounds like semantics and doesn't explain the race thing

Forward To Death

Lololol. Justin Timberlake tops 2013 iTunes sales, with Beyonce close behind - NY Daily News two R&B artists with the most iTunes sales for last year.

Btw, check that wiki article again, like 90% of the artists aren't even relevant anymore, and most of the recently relevant ones are R&B artists.

Sure you can, and going by your own logic, that means that perception is reality, right? So if the popular perception is that these artists are R&B, then by the logic of your own argument, you're wrong, and R&B is very popular.

It's R&B dude. Like I said earlier, modern rock might not be rock in the traditional sense, it might suck ass, but it's still what is widely considered to be rock, so rock is still a popular genre, and R&B is an extremely popular genre.

Soulflower

They don't make R&B, they make alternative music.

I think most here associate R&B as black music but just because you are African American doesn't mean you make R&B.

Janszoon

All of Maxwell's albums, including his most recent one, have gone platinum. He's been on the popular side of the fence for his entire career. D'Angelo hasn't released an album in 14 years, so I'm not sure why you're even talking about him in the context of contemporary music, but both of his studio albums were platinum sellers.

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Soulflower

Maxwell is not a pop star or mainstream artist. He has never been a pop singer and primarily has an R&B niche audience.

The same can apply to D Angelo which is why I used him as an example. They might have platinum albums but that doesn't mean they sell more compared to Justin Timberlake or Britney Spears for instance.

R&B is not a big selling genre anymore.


I just used those two as examples but I have listed plenty of other R&B artists in this thread.

Can you explain why Tamia, Vivian Green, Brandy or Anthony Hamilton don't sell a lot compared to most pop singers then?

If R&B is such a popular genre, why are they not selling out arena's?

They tour but they definitely do not do arena's.


Why are their songs not number one on the POP charts or Billboard HOT 100 if R&B is very popular as you say?

Soulflower

Elaborate on how it is easier for whites to cross over with R&B music compared to African Americans?

Ninetales

What. How is the Weeknd less R&B than Adele i don't get this. Alternative doesn't even mean anything. It's an empty tag

Like I'm no expert in this genre by any means but it seems like your dancing around silly semantics to make points on artists you would want to see more successful.

"There aren't any popular traditional R&B artists in the mainstream. Except JT and he's white" is basically what I'm hearing. It seems ridiculous to banter about the lack of popular R&B and then cite race as the reason one artist in the genre got massively successful. You've been fighting the point that it's a small popular sample size and then using that small sample as a race blanket.

Forward To Death

I thought you said they weren't selling, though. They obviously are, but now the argument has suddenly shifted to that they aren't pop singers. What do you have to do to be a pop singer? I don't even know if you can quantify that. I think by your own logic, that becoming pop makes you not R&B, then how the hell is anyone ever supposed to fit into your ridiculously small criteria? By your logic, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Beyonce, none of these artists should be considered R&B, because they were "pop".

Honestly, is this another black vs. white thing? I think it is.