The "Urban" label
May 7, 2018 7:40:48 GMT 10
Post by X2M on May 7, 2018 7:40:48 GMT 10
So, I have meant to discuss this topic for quite some time now, but I haven't had the chance because I had a busy schedule for the last few weeks. I noticed that over the years, whenever a black musician becomes mainstream, that person is automatically placed either into the Hip-Hop or R&B tag. However, what the music industry doesn't seem to understand is that what if that same artist ends up deciding to do something else other than R&B or Hip-hop? It appears that they don't even get a choice.
It just seems weird since not all African-Americans sing R&B songs or even rap. Besides, before hip-hop was even a genre, black artists were into everything from Rock and country to jazz and easy-listening tracks. Caucasians, Latinos, Asians, etc. also produce Hip-hop songs as well as R&B, but for some reason, the industry labels their songs as "pop." Last, R&B stands for Rhythm and Blues which derived from the second term. It honestly doesn't make any sense. Now, I'm aware that are African-American musicians who are or were not branded as R&B or Hip-hop by the music business, but there is a minimal of them. Michael Jackson, B.B King, Black Eyed Peas, Jason Derulo, Darius Rucker, and Khalid are a few black musicians who made music outside the urban title and even received tons of appeal from a broad audience. It's frankly a bummer that black artists are considered Hip-hop/R&B by the industry while the non-black musicians are not. In the end, music is music. The record labels shouldn't define it by ethnicity, but instead talented, passionate, and enthusiastic people. That's who gets the job done. BTW, I will link two articles down below so anyone who is interested can get a glimpse of my OP.
Alt R&B
black musicians on being boxed in
It just seems weird since not all African-Americans sing R&B songs or even rap. Besides, before hip-hop was even a genre, black artists were into everything from Rock and country to jazz and easy-listening tracks. Caucasians, Latinos, Asians, etc. also produce Hip-hop songs as well as R&B, but for some reason, the industry labels their songs as "pop." Last, R&B stands for Rhythm and Blues which derived from the second term. It honestly doesn't make any sense. Now, I'm aware that are African-American musicians who are or were not branded as R&B or Hip-hop by the music business, but there is a minimal of them. Michael Jackson, B.B King, Black Eyed Peas, Jason Derulo, Darius Rucker, and Khalid are a few black musicians who made music outside the urban title and even received tons of appeal from a broad audience. It's frankly a bummer that black artists are considered Hip-hop/R&B by the industry while the non-black musicians are not. In the end, music is music. The record labels shouldn't define it by ethnicity, but instead talented, passionate, and enthusiastic people. That's who gets the job done. BTW, I will link two articles down below so anyone who is interested can get a glimpse of my OP.
Alt R&B
black musicians on being boxed in
