Before these last two months, I had only purchased two albums that would qualify as R&B music, which is my favorite genre. Those albums were the up and down Day26 release and Usher’s latest, which is good, though a bit underwhelming. However, with the release of Ne-Yo, Robin Thicke, Raphael Saadiq, and the newly released Evolver from John Legend, R&B is on fire right now. Money Mike and I discussed R&B music in the year 2008 in our latest Sound Dialogue.
GG: What was going on in the early parts of 2008 with R&B music? I’m sure there were a few releases that I missed, but nothing even tempted me to make a purchase. Are there any underdog R&B stories of 2008 that I missed, or was it just a weak first 7 months for R&B?
MM: You and I have sort of different tastes when it comes to R&B. There’s a very specific sound you like, which is the male groups and the male solo artists with a less alternative kind of sound. I like that stuff too, so maybe I should just say that we have similar tastes, but there are some artists I dig that you probably wouldn’t go for. There were a couple of sleepers in the early part of the year. Raheem Devaughn’s album was good, as was Van Hunt’s. But as far as contemporary R&B, things were looking bad until last month.
GG: I guess that’s how I should’ve stated it. Contemporary R&B. Conventional R&B. Whatever you want to call it. But I want to ask you something related. Why hasn’t there been much in the world of female R&B? Or is that another genre that I’m missing out on?