Kingkushieee
Team Owner
I talked about this a little in The Weeknd/Usher thread but let’s really talk about it.
Back in 2011, Trey was dominating the R&B charts, Usher was riding from the success of his biggest comeback to date, Chris was slowly but surely getting the public back on his side after the incident with Rihanna, Rihanna was dominating both pop & R&B her damn self, and Beyoncé came back after a two year break with 4.
Then in the underground you had The Weeknd, Frank & Jhene buzzing with a sound called “Alternate R&B.” It was known as a more darker version of R&B and it appealed to the “hipster” crowd.
The Weeknd was very unknown at the time until Drake came across him and brought him to the forefront on “Take Care,” which had the Alternative R&B sound.
Frank had already worked with Beyoncé, Brandy, John Legend, Jay & Kanye with writing songs and was with Odd Future. Odd Future had an hipster sound so Frank’s sound fitted perfectly with them.
Novacane (Explicit)
And Jhene was starting to get her shine after years being in the industry and long after getting her start with B2K. After B2K disbanded Jhene went back to being a normal teenager and popped back up around this time with a mature sound and a adult rebrand as “Jhene Aiko.”
All three of them dropped legendary mixtapes in 2011 with House of Balloons, Nostalgia Ultra and Sailing Souls. Then in 2012 Frank made his mainstream debut with Channel Orange. Due to the success Frank gained with Channel Orange, labels started to look closely at “Alternate R&B” especially since it appealed more to yts than traditional R&B ever did. The Weeknd & Jhene was buzzing even more but 2012 was when they both signed with a major labels.
2013 is when it really gets interesting, a lot of the known R&B artists wasn’t really active around this time R&B artists like August Alsina, Tinashe, Mack Wilds & Sevyn started to come up (not with the Alternative R&B sound but the traditional/contemporary sound even though Tinashe was in that Alternative bracket), K Michelle was able to breakout thanks to her popularity & appearance on LHHATL, Miguel started to dominate a bit (he had a mixture of alternative & traditional R&B), Ciara made a minor comeback but R&B was starting to be in a weird place. Especially since Hip Hop & its artists were gaining more recognition than R&B especially with the “Trap” sound becoming more apparent in Hip Hop. Plus both The Weeknd & Jhene dropped their debut albums towards the end of that year. After Abel turned down OVO, Drake signed PND, an artist that had a very similar sound to Abel.
2014 is when the shift started to become really noticeable with “Trap R&B” and DJ Mustard being the Teddy Riley of Trap.
You had all the well known R&B artists dropping sh!t like this:
Usher - I Don't Mind (Audio) ft. Juicy J
Hell even Queen Bey popped up with a completely different sound
Beyoncé - Drunk in Love (Explicit) ft. JAY Z
SZA made her underground debut with the alternative R&B sound. And August, K Michelle, Sevyn & Tinashe were all able to thrive & chart in this year due to their sounds fitting in with the Trap R&B sound. Damn near every song on the radio that year was produced by Mustard. Other new artists that year such as Tee FLiii & Adrian Marcel were able to score a hit with the Mustard Trap R&B sound.
TeeFLii ft. 2 Chainz - 24 Hours (Official Video)
Adrian Marcel - 2AM. ft. Sage The Gemini (Official Video)
Then 2015 is when it really gets shifted completely especially with the debut of Bryson Tiller & The Weeknd’s big mainstream success with Beauty Behind The Madness. Trapsoul made a huge splash in the industry and even washing out all the artists that were coming up between 2013-2014 that had the traditional R&B sound and made most of the prominent well known artists at time stick to the “Trap R&B” sound.
Since then R&B has become completely whitewashed with yt artists trying to do their watered downed version of R&B and it’s the main reason besides social media on why we have so many lackluster artists & music today. Artist like Bryson, SZA, 6lack, Summer Walker where birthed from that sound. I like “Alternative R&B” but I’m just calling a spade a spade.
Back in 2011, Trey was dominating the R&B charts, Usher was riding from the success of his biggest comeback to date, Chris was slowly but surely getting the public back on his side after the incident with Rihanna, Rihanna was dominating both pop & R&B her damn self, and Beyoncé came back after a two year break with 4.
Then in the underground you had The Weeknd, Frank & Jhene buzzing with a sound called “Alternate R&B.” It was known as a more darker version of R&B and it appealed to the “hipster” crowd.
The Weeknd was very unknown at the time until Drake came across him and brought him to the forefront on “Take Care,” which had the Alternative R&B sound.
Frank had already worked with Beyoncé, Brandy, John Legend, Jay & Kanye with writing songs and was with Odd Future. Odd Future had an hipster sound so Frank’s sound fitted perfectly with them.
Novacane (Explicit)
And Jhene was starting to get her shine after years being in the industry and long after getting her start with B2K. After B2K disbanded Jhene went back to being a normal teenager and popped back up around this time with a mature sound and a adult rebrand as “Jhene Aiko.”
All three of them dropped legendary mixtapes in 2011 with House of Balloons, Nostalgia Ultra and Sailing Souls. Then in 2012 Frank made his mainstream debut with Channel Orange. Due to the success Frank gained with Channel Orange, labels started to look closely at “Alternate R&B” especially since it appealed more to yts than traditional R&B ever did. The Weeknd & Jhene was buzzing even more but 2012 was when they both signed with a major labels.
2013 is when it really gets interesting, a lot of the known R&B artists wasn’t really active around this time R&B artists like August Alsina, Tinashe, Mack Wilds & Sevyn started to come up (not with the Alternative R&B sound but the traditional/contemporary sound even though Tinashe was in that Alternative bracket), K Michelle was able to breakout thanks to her popularity & appearance on LHHATL, Miguel started to dominate a bit (he had a mixture of alternative & traditional R&B), Ciara made a minor comeback but R&B was starting to be in a weird place. Especially since Hip Hop & its artists were gaining more recognition than R&B especially with the “Trap” sound becoming more apparent in Hip Hop. Plus both The Weeknd & Jhene dropped their debut albums towards the end of that year. After Abel turned down OVO, Drake signed PND, an artist that had a very similar sound to Abel.
2014 is when the shift started to become really noticeable with “Trap R&B” and DJ Mustard being the Teddy Riley of Trap.
You had all the well known R&B artists dropping sh!t like this:
Usher - I Don't Mind (Audio) ft. Juicy J
Hell even Queen Bey popped up with a completely different sound
Beyoncé - Drunk in Love (Explicit) ft. JAY Z
SZA made her underground debut with the alternative R&B sound. And August, K Michelle, Sevyn & Tinashe were all able to thrive & chart in this year due to their sounds fitting in with the Trap R&B sound. Damn near every song on the radio that year was produced by Mustard. Other new artists that year such as Tee FLiii & Adrian Marcel were able to score a hit with the Mustard Trap R&B sound.
TeeFLii ft. 2 Chainz - 24 Hours (Official Video)
Adrian Marcel - 2AM. ft. Sage The Gemini (Official Video)
Then 2015 is when it really gets shifted completely especially with the debut of Bryson Tiller & The Weeknd’s big mainstream success with Beauty Behind The Madness. Trapsoul made a huge splash in the industry and even washing out all the artists that were coming up between 2013-2014 that had the traditional R&B sound and made most of the prominent well known artists at time stick to the “Trap R&B” sound.
Since then R&B has become completely whitewashed with yt artists trying to do their watered downed version of R&B and it’s the main reason besides social media on why we have so many lackluster artists & music today. Artist like Bryson, SZA, 6lack, Summer Walker where birthed from that sound. I like “Alternative R&B” but I’m just calling a spade a spade.
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