WHY IS R&B MUSIC MORE EXPLICIT THAN EVER? IT’S COMPLICATED.
NEW YORK – Tank was nervous after sending his manager a preview of “When We” – he’d never released a song that explicit. “He’s like, ‘You’re crazy, but it’s jammin’!’ ” the R&B singer recalled. “It ended up being my biggest record ever.”
Released in 2017, the seductive chorus of “when we (expletive)” was obviously too explicit for radio, so a “clean” version used the phrase “when we touch.” Despite releasing his first album in 2001 and crafting hits like “Maybe I Deserve” and “Please Don’t Go,” it was “When We” that’s been Tank’s most successful, finishing No. 1 on Billboard’s 2018 year-end adult R&B airplay chart.
“I didn’t reinvent anything vocally – a little R&B here and there, tapped into my rap cadence, tapped into my Migos (style),” Tank, now 47, said. “I was competitive.”
Being competitive – and collaborative – with hip-hop is one of the reasons today’s R&B is more explicit. Last year’s Luminate Yearend report found that R&b/hip-hop is America’s most popular genre, accounting for the most U.S. on-demand song streams and the largest share of total album consumption.
“It just seems a little bit more extravagant now because some of the R&B singers are acting like rappers,” said Colby Tyner, senior vice president of programming at Radio One and Reach Media, which operates the largest urban radio network in the United States. “It was a clear separation of church and state. Now, it’s a little bit together and so the music reflects it.”
So how did R&B go from Boyz II Men’s “I’ll Make Love to You” to Chris Brown singing ”(expletive) you back to sleep”? It’s complicated.
“It used to be that television and radio was where you got your content. And if it was television and radio, it was censored because of the FCC. Well, you got Youtube, you got all these streaming services and you got social media. So, we are in the authentic era,” said Tyner. “We (radio industry) are the last sort of bastions of ‘we can’t do that’ because we’re controlled by the government regulations.”
During interviews over several months, The Associated Press asked those who create the music and industry experts about changes in R&B. Here are some of their thoughts in their own words:
The hip-hop effect
Just one offensive or curse word can lead to a parental advisory label, so what’s defined as explicit can be subjective. It’s the parent test: Would they want their children listening? While Hollywood has an independent ratings board, record companies and artists determine what receives a parental warning.
As hip-hop grew in popularity, Billboard had to adapt. Some charts began grouping rappers and singers together, triggering fights for airplay which remains a sore subject. And with the recent explosion of melodic rap – a blend of rapping and harmonizing – spearheaded by artists like Future, Drake, Lil Uzi Vert and Travis Scott, the Grammys now recognize it as a category.
In the 1990s, a period considered by some as R&B’S last golden age, it was almost unthinkable that an artist would curse because radio couldn’t play it. None of the top 25 songs on Billboard’s 1990 Hot R&b/hip-hop Songs chart required an explicit label. In 2022, with rap more dominant, all but one in the top 25 – Beyoncé’s “Break My Soul” – needed a clean version.
“There was definitely some explicit R&B … but there’s no limit to what you can say sexually in hip-hop. And then when R&B and hiphop merged, you had the hip-hop and R&B world – so that’s literally what happened. And so now, the R&B singers have taken that way of speaking from the hip-hop cats. And the hiphop cats have taken the melodic singing.” – Robert Glasper, four-time Grammy winner, 2023 R&B album nominee.
“Chris Brown is the top of the food chain….he lives and rolls like a rapper. He has an entourage like a rapper. His energy is like a rapper – not like Tevin Campbell in the ‘Can We Talk Days.’ He can make the most sensual, classic, urban AC or R&B record that you would love, but he also can express that other side as well.” – Colby Tyner, SVP of programming, Radio One and Reach Media.
“We started having to compete with rap music, which is extremely explicit – extremely … When you’re trying to compete for space on a chart or in a playlist, and these are the things that they’re playing, how do you find your way? How do you even get into the conversation? And so, our language has kind of had to evolve to be competitive.” – Tank, five-time Grammy nominee.