Who are the R&B geniuses ATM?

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I love Jeremih but does he produce and write songs for others too? I was only aware of him as a singer.

who is the Timbaland/Teddy Riley/Babyface/Jam and Lewis of this era?
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
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I could keep going but that'll help Corpse.

Jeremih is not even important in today's R&B landscape that's pitchforkian mythos.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Crowley, is there anyone ATM defining the sound of RnB as Timbaland e.g. once did? Does such a sound exist? Is Ty Dolla Sign that somebody?
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Just found out Ty Dolla wrote Loyal by Chris Brown

A song I am slightly ashamed for liking due to 1. Chris brown 2. Misogyny but absolutely love anyway sooo
 
Taking it back even further, Ty wrote and produced YG's "Toot It And Boot It" in 2009, sang the hook on DJ Quik's "Nobody (feat. Suga Free)" in 2010 and did some crazy things on the Young and Hungover mixtape with YG and Bobby Brackins in 2011 (see: "Go To Work" and "Adderall").

 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
I asked corpse to DM me an email b/c my current job doesn't allow twitter access and he stood me up for the typical longpost and I emailed Luka to no avail so this has been sitting around for a little bit today

"Essentially Ty Dolla $ign's career range is kind of the conventional auteur of the 80s where there's a stylistic range that overwhelms (think Prince as an obvious archtype but also Rick James to a certain degree). You've got the Rihanna song which is basically a Fleetwood Mac song pop-rock record, you've got the collaborations w/ Sa-Ra that puts him in the post-Dilla period of neo-soul. He's one of the foremost early figures of Rap/R&B trying to mess with EDM and he was the earliest archtype in the whole 'Ratchet'/'RnBass' scene that later blew up through Mustard (who was his production protege to a certain degree). He's got a great mastery of conventional R&B structure but also knows how to hybridalize it in order to suit the contemporary tastes of his peers and younger generations. Not to mention he's a multi-instrumentalist and composer in addition to a beatmaker and songwriter.


Like I am downplaying Jeremih in comparison but Jeremih is essentially a slightly daring post-R. Kelly singer-songwriter, there isn't AS MUCH going on creatively and ambitiously as there is with Ty$."


Also throwing these further examples in:

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Comparisons to a Timbaland type auteur are impossible because Timbaland is actually not an R&B auteur. Tim most certainly understands how music works but so much of his ideas are amusical unlike say The Neptunes. Timbaland's most likely modern inheritors are your Mustards and your Mike Wills, but neither function in the same way b/c the climate and the reference points that inform them are too different.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
Though to further point to the problems of auteurism with even Timbo... We know Tim was formerly in a band with The Neptunes, both of those 'camps' ended up doing understudy work for different preceding R&B auteurs (Chad and Pharrell w/ Teddy Riley and Tim (along with Missy, Magoo, Tweet & Ginuwine) w/ Devante Swing) and having larger collectives where the argument of who did what for things becomes ambiguous...

Likewise in the D.R.U.G.S camp you had Ty, Mustard, Mike Free, and others all working on those records (not to mention the subconscious influence of peers like the HBK Gang in The Bay and League of Starz also in LA) so a lot of credit as to who does things production and ideawise is v. difficult. The innovation isn't just a spontaneous MOMENT but a collective team working. After all, we later realized how much of 3rd phase Timbo is Danja, and honestly we should credit Jimmy Douglass w/ a lot of 1st and 2nd phase Timbaland production as well for at least the crispness and the cuts of those beat constructions.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Comparisons to a Timbaland type auteur are impossible because Timbaland is actually not an R&B auteur. Tim most certainly understands how music works but so much of his ideas are amusical unlike say The Neptunes. Timbaland's most likely modern inheritors are your Mustards and your Mike Wills, but neither function in the same way b/c the climate and the reference points that inform them are too different.


Would you mind on expanding on what you mean by amusical here?
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
Would you mind on expanding on what you mean by amusical here?

I'm using musical in the idea of Musicianship. The Neptunes as producers function more with an emphasis as a band (which they are essentially, though granted Tim was in that one group/band with them eons ago) whereas Tim def gets a lot of his musical ideas from musicians playing them but his process is more tech oriented and collagist. Not that Timbaland isn't himself musical b/c certainly he loves using people to help flesh out his ideas with a lot of straightforward stuff not unlike the Neptunes but what he does at the core is usually rhythmic experimentation and trickery.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
B.e.d. is great.

Like the dream he's a child of r Kelly (an unfortunate phrase) but more than a pale imitation.

Listening to young thugs verse on offshore recently I would say he's one of the foremost rnb vocalists these days if we're admitting that rap and rnb have merged fully at points.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
I mean Young Thug doesn't sing like an R&B singer so not really no.

That's the worst attribute of rap's turn into melodic approaches; that because they're black people kind of automatically shift them into R&B as far as to what they're doing melodically. Future sings more like a rock singer than a R&B singer, but people are gonna call something like "Turn On The Lights" R&B b/c...
 
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