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And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. Okay, so this week I've been listening to Chancellor Rapper's new album, The Big Day. And it's made me deeply question everything I thought I knew about genre. Cool.
So check us out. Here's his top charting song right now, Hot Shower. Wait, you said this is a top charting song? Yeah, it's a little board, and it's both on the Hot 100 and on the R&B and Hip Hop chart.
This is a fun track. I mean, it takes me back to early hip hop in his delivery, but then there's this trap element here with those rattling hi-hats. I'm into this. I'm glad this is doing well.
Okay, but then get this. Just a few songs later, you get something like, I got you always and forever. I love this too, but it's like completely different. Or it's old school, but in a new Jack swing kind of way.
Like early 90s R&B or something. Exactly. And so this has got me thinking, what kind of music is this album? Chance obviously calls himself a rapper, but I also love when his flow merges into song.
Like there's a really great song you voice as well. And his music clearly blends between gospel, hip hop, funk. There's even some disco on this album. Hell yeah, there is.
Obviously R&B and I thought maybe we could consult the billboard to see where these songs were charting and maybe that would help us understand how other people are perceiving the genre in chances record. Okay. So the album is number two on the billboard 200 and three of the songs are actually on the hot 100, which is like the mega chart tracking the hot singles and four of the songs. Handsome, do you remember all day long and hot shower are all charting on the billboard R&B slash hip hop, hot song starts.
Okay. Sometimes on the show, we talk about the billboard charts. That could mean a lot of different things. Yes, but specifically, this is one of the top charts.
If you look at the top charts and you look at the top charts, one of them is the R&B slash hip hop hot charts. Okay. Now, billboard does break out rap and R&B as subcategories, but it's a combined chart, which is predominantly featured. And it also confirms my confusion about chances music.
It literally bridges categories within a combined category. Okay. Yeah. Ooh, this is my brain is starting to hurt.
Instigated by chances the big day, I found myself questioning what does R&B specifically even mean today? Where does it divide from hip hop? And does it have a sound? Is it its own genre?
Yeah. But before we can go there, I needed to catch myself up on how this term has changed over the years. Okay, cool. So R&B has a complicated history that we're not going to be able to cover exhaustively in one episode.
It's been intertwined with complexities of American race and identity since its birth in the dawn of this right era. What I want to focus on today was simply how the billboard has changed the label and methodology of counting R&B over the years to see how it may have led to my confusion. And we'll see that it's changed a lot decade by decade. Interesting.
The title of the billboard R&B charts hasn't necessarily changed, but what R&B represents has. Don't get out of me. Okay. Okay.
Now I had known that originally in the late 40s, R&B was originally known as the Harlem hit rate. That's what it was called billboard. And then it was changed to race records before billboard updated the title to rhythm and blues. But what I didn't know is where it went from there.
So I got on the phone with billboard to help understand how this term has evolved. Hi, I'm Trevor Anderson. I am the R&B and hip hop chart manager here at billboard. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, billboard toyed with different chart titles before finally harmonizing around a single name.
They've been rhythm and blues kind of isolated before, but I really solidified down to R&B for the longest time in about 1956. One of the best artists to give us a taste of the R&B sound of the mid and late 50s. I think it's Sam Cooke. It's all you send me spent six weeks at number one in 1957.
Darling, you send me. I know you send me. Darling, you. I miss you.
I miss you. Whoa. Man, that track holds up very well. So zooming to the 50s, the R&B sound seems defined by acoustic instruments, soulful, gospel inflected vocals.
I think you'll hear it. Not maybe with this song, but a lot of song forms derived from the 12-bar blues form. This is also the seeds of rock and roll, which is developing kind of concurrently. So yeah, very specific sound in the 1950s for R&B.
This slow tempo blues inspired in what I would say romantic vocal became the sound of R&B. But while this became a prominent sound of the era, R&B as a genre actually didn't last on the billboard. In 1963 to 1965, the billboard stopped reporting the R&B charts because pop music and R&B basically fused and were synonymous with each other. And specifically, a lot of white artists started to mimic the sound.
That's Elle Sis crying in the chapel in 1965. It was the number nine song of the year. Yeah. So this is a track from that period when the pop and R&B charts were sort of merged.
There was no differentiation between them. Yeah. Okay, so that's interesting because it does feel like it's borrowing elements from both styles. And then it's like, I'm going to take your troubles to the chad.
We still have rhythmically that six, eight that feel we still have those acoustic instruments. We're kind of so full vocal. But then there's also these elements that seem more drawn from pop. Like it's got this, it's kind of a little square.
It's not as swung. The vocals land in all the right places a little bit more. Maybe it's playing it safe in some ways. Yeah.
Well, you know, this is just one of countless examples throughout history of pop music, assuming black culture. And chart theorists speculate that billboard adjusted their R&B methodology as a corrective to specifically highlight music created by black artists and listened to by audiences. They did this by counting R&B specific radio formats and black owned retailers as a part of the charts. And maybe this adjustment in 1965 and R&B was reintroduced by the billboard as the hot rhythm and blues singles.
However, the sound of black music changed and the label didn't fit for long. Here's Trevor again. It was that until about the late 1960s, then the term soul took over from R&B. And so the main billboard chart that today reflect R&B and hip hop at that time became the soul single chart.
The billboard category, which had once been driven by blues music and then dramatic sounds of artists like Sam Cooke, then becomes the soul charts to broaden the kind of music they can end up in that category, including funk hits like the 1969 song, I Can't Get Next to You by The Temptations. Oh, God, I love The Temptations. Also remember when vocal groups actually used to sound different? Yeah.
As in like each, you could like recognize each member and you know, the temptations we've got at this point, I think lead singer Dennis Edwards with that rough gravely lead voice. Melville Franklin was holding down the low end. You have Eddie Kendrick's taking that high-faucetto. And then of course Otis Williams and Paul Williams kind of bringing in those like subtle tenor tones in the background.
Sorry, what were we talking about? I just love their also the introduction of the funk guitar, an entirely new way of playing the guitar, like basically a drum is acting as a real rhythm instrument. So this would have, so it's just a check and this would have appeared on the soul charts in 1969. Yeah, and soul records ruled the 70s.
But again, the sound of black music constantly evolving for the decade, sort of unsightly settles this category. Trevor said that by the end of the decade, it was felt that the term soul did not reflect what black America was listening to. Yeah, in 1982 there's a decision and it goes from soul singles to black singles. The terms R&B and soul, they didn't act really totally and capture the kind of music that African Americans in particular were listening to and buying.
You know, really became a mix of disco and pop and rock and gospel and jazz. I mean, I really was just the music that black Americans were consuming and taking part in. I feel like M2Mays' Juicy Fruit recorded in 1982 and released in 83 really highlights some of these musical changes. That's not the temptation.
Whoa, did the temperature of this room just increase by 10? It's a bit toasty. I mean, I love listening to this. On one hand, it feels very new, as you said.
We've got programmed drums. We have that fun guitar to come even a little sharper and harder. We've got like, it sounds like synthesizers are in the mix too. And yet there's also, I might say there is some continuity going all the way back to Sam Cook at this point.
We slowed down. Yeah, those vocals are so like tender and romantic. Interesting. Okay.
And for me, it's definitely a far cry from the early sort of blues era race records and it sounds certainly different than the soul records that are happening in the 70s. The track also foreshadows a significant shift in genre. We know that Doris B.I.G. Of course uses this song as the main sample for his hit Juicy in the 90s.
The 90s were a period of critical change in the Billboard's methodology, just as music is changing, so is the way that they're counting it. Which once again, affects the sound and the categorization of R&B, which Trevor attributes two changes in technology. The music comes in and sound scan and these technologies are better able to accurately identify from a range of genres, the specific types of radio air play that are coming through. So there's a lot more diversity of radio stations and parts of radio stations.
So for people who like, you know, instead of listening to sort of a one black station, now there's a lane for a gospel station. Now there's a lane for an adult R&B station. Now there's a lane for a jam station. So with that, you know, those genres are able to get their own charcoal and billboards in a way that they really hadn't had before.
And so as part of that, then R&B sort of became once again that predominant genre for that experience. So there wasn't really a need to categorize and lump them all together as black single anymore. I could go back to the R&B. From the 60s through the 80s, the terms R&B and soul, then black singles were used as umbrella categories to communicate what black artists were making and black audiences were listening to.
But then in the 1990s, closer tracking of listening behavior results in a breakup of these umbrella categories fracturing into smaller sub genres. Once again, R&B gets its own chart and the genre performs remarkably well. And the 90s in particular, you know, I think people think that really is one of the great R&B heyday just because people about 100, for example, which, you know, considered the main pop charts, a lot of R&B records are taking over the airways at that time. So, you know, the distillation gets back down in the 90s in particular to the Gar&B.
So it seems the R&B had started as a genre, opens up to be inclusive of all kinds of music, and is now sort of isolating again into a specific genre. This is the era of Tony Braxton. Right. And I guess that's thinking about the way they used to be.
Janet Jackson. And Boys to Men. Definitely. Oof.
Damn. Those harmonies are on point. Also, perhaps that's, I don't know if I've clocked this before. You know, the first time he says, I'll make love to you like you want me to.
But then the second time he says, I'll make love to you when you want me to. And it's like, okay, I like that second version. There's a little more consent implied. As Trevor says, there seems to be more genre coherence and a specific R&B sound.
Okay, so now this is so interesting because I'm like listening to these songs through this historical R&B continuum now. And the 90s as representing sort of the second Renaissance, I guess, of R&B really makes sense to me. I mean, I see Sam Cooke is like the, you know, the origin point to trace all this back to in some ways. I mean, whether that's accurate or not.
I see a lot of commonality between this in a track like you send me. Again, it's got this slow tempo. It's got these soaring romantic vocals with a lot of ad living and space from improv. It's got kind of lush chords, acoustic instruments, some at least.
I mean, we've come a long way and yet maybe I haven't gone far at all. It was much more coming back to a sound and a sort of coherent genre. Yeah. So this is the era that heyday for R&B artists.
It's also the period that hip hop starts to crossover. Yes. One hill, for example, comes along and she really kind of changes the game because, you know, with education, Lord Hill, if you open an album, it's got a mix of rap and it's got a mix of R&B. It's got a mix of old school influences, more performances, more performance, you both rap and things.
You know, that kind of forces really the industry and billboard is part of that to reevaluate and encapsulate what she's doing as both an R&B artist, you know, somebody's actually singing and performing that way, but also with the hip hop artist because she has just that sound and that flavor and that culture. That's what makes that change happen to make an RB Flash hip hop where to say. In 1989, the R&B and hip hop charts merge to catch up to where the music and the audience is at. We can hear this crossover between hip hop and R&B in songs like Didi and Faith Evans, I'll be missing you.
And Nelly and Kelly Rowan's dilemma. But at this point, the lines of genre have been pretty thoroughly blurred. Audiences are now listening to all kinds of genres and the genres are influencing each other, which is no surprise given that we're now in the era of digital downloads and more ubiquitous music consumption. But it's not just listener behavior driving these crossovers.
It's also the charts. Remember when in 1965, Billboard changed its rules to specifically highlight music being created by black artists and listened to by a black audience? Yeah, how could I forget? Well, according to Driver, that all changed in 2012 when billboard harmonized its methods to account for streaming across all its charts.
Now, in 2012, the changes made to directly reflect the Hot 100. So that also includes any of the pop audience there play that comes across many songs that have crossover appeal because before that crossover appeal was reflected on the RBF hop chart. So now that it mirrors Hot 100, it opens up that pop radio play and all those retail sales from iTunes or any retailer at that point. So now reflect Hot 100.
And even today still, if you go down the Hot 100 and you go down the Hot RB and Pop songs charts, you'll see that the order that the songs appear on Hot 100 is the same order that they appear on the Hot RB of Pop song chart or the Hot Rap song chart or the Hot RB song chart. So just to clarify, Billboard used to have different methodologies of counting for each of its different charts. And then in 2012, it decides to standardize to the Hot 100 method because frankly listener behavior has changed, streaming is really the main way of listening in store purchases less important and radio and all of it's in there, but they have one method now. And even though there are subcategories for rap and R&B, they're really just subsets of the Hot 100 method, which is to say that all the charts are counted in the same methodology now.
So this methodology has put Billboard in the difficult position of designating what falls and what genre, which has created no shortage of controversy. I can imagine. Right. Sometimes you don't want to be either the person that has to pick and choose.
Yeah, or ever. But go ahead. Yeah. We previously covered the country hip hop old town road to battle, but it's not the only one.
Billboard previously got in Hot water in 2014 when uptown funk and obviously funk song was not given the R&B designation. They instead called it a pop hit that crossed over to R&B radio. And there have been other unintended consequences of this new methodology as well, especially representation. Unfortunately, we're seeing some of the same dynamics of the early 1960s with some homogenization happening with the charts.
According to Chris Malanffi at Slate in 2013, 44 out of 52 weeks, the Hot R&B hip hop chart historically black chart was taught by white artists, mostly Macklemore, Ryan Lewis and Robin Thicke. Interesting. So on one hand, Billboard has over the years responded to changes in R&B music, but it's also how to force in shaping the sound by choosing what those categories are, or now selecting what genre a song fits in, which I would argue has contributed to some audience confusion, especially on my part. Yeah.
And for a lot of listeners, as well as artists, R&B is still an essential label separate from the combined R&B hip hop chart. Right. So I thought it'd be important that we talk with someone who could speak on the subject of the authority, someone who Rolling Stone called one of today's most important R&B producers. My name's Oak Felder.
I'm six-five and I'm very friendly. This is true. That is all true. Oak is a bit of a super producer and has worked with pop acts like Britney Spears, Alessia Cara and Demi Lovato.
But more importantly, he's really sculpted the sound of many R&B records for artists like Usher, Toni Braxton, Miguel and Kaylani. And when we return, we'll join Oak in his studio so I can finally get a handle on the sound of R&B today. Excellent. I'm Maria Sharapova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough.
Every week I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Follow Pretty Tough wherever you get your podcasts. So we are 250 years into this American experiment and I say it's going OK.
I give us like a C plus. There is no perfect past, but there is also no exclusively negative past because humans are going to human. That's what we do. I think the story of America is the struggle of people who have not been included in the promise of America to expand those principles to include more people.
What's going to determine the next 250 years of America and how do we write a new social contract that can give us the democracy we deserve? OK, so I'm just going to be a jerk here because I'm a historian. So we have to have a prologue explaining, you know, we the people. OK, you know, I just don't remember it from Schoolhouse Rock.
We the people that don't even form a perfect union and establish justice. That is it. Insert domestic tranquility. So you're talking about a foundational document.
So I'm building a document that will protect American democracy. That's this week on America, actually. How should we conceptualize the broad category of R&B in 2019? R&B, I think, exists in two different forms right now.
R&B exists as a genre and R&B also exists as an influence. And I think that there's a difference. As an influence, there are certain things that are brought to other styles of music that have, you know, traditionally been a part of the R&B genre and that gets sort of influxed into what's happening with rap music, what's happening with pop music and all these other things. R&B is a genre right now, however, to me, is a very specific of what it is.
It's not all exactly the same, but it is sort of a new thing from a genre standpoint. It feels very different than at any other point in history. It's sort of this amalgamation of borrowed concepts from the past, like from the 60s and these sort of rhythmic concepts from today, the newer sort of contemporary rhythmic concepts and it kind of fused. That's what the modern genre of R&B is right now.
As it relates to R&B being an influence, it's literally all the greatest hits of R&B over the last 70 years or 60 years have all been kind of thrown into every genre of music. So that's how I would define it. What are some of the essential musical components that people are hearing when we associate R&B and get brain music? The first thing that comes to mind is chord selection.
R&B chords have a lot of character to them. Like you're never going to play a straight C major or C minor, like I'm not playing a three finger chord, unless you do it on accident. It's always going to be something with like a extra added, this with a flat on top and minor seventh. It's going to be really, really.
So that, I think the relationship of the melody to the chord, my perception of pop music is that it's a very straightforward chord progression that doesn't move a whole lot and then you have a melody that's very dynamic. R&B is the opposite. You have a melody that's sort of very sort of straightforward and almost rhythmic and a chord progression that's very dynamic. So that you create the tension in the same way except in pop one thing is moving and an R&B the other thing is moving.
The other thing that I would identify R&B with is sonic selection. If I pull up a whirly, like an old school whirly and put a reverb and a filter on it and start playing some cool chords. That's going to be an R&B track, you know, especially if I pull up some hard-ass drums. Firstly chord, secondly, sounds like something I think.
I pay a lot of attention to the nuance of genre and I'm seeing R&B transition from being trap oriented to just being R&B. I can go back to 2015 and pull up three, four productions, including ones that I did. One example is distraction by Keilani. There's 808 in that record, there's trap hats in that record.
There's like these cool, like bendy synths in that record and that sort of gets its influences from trap music because trap, you know, at that point, is starting to explode and still big today. But R&B, at this point, is starting to sort of leave all that to the side. And so today, you know, I'll pull up some cool chords. My drums will still be hard.
They won't necessarily be trap drums, which is a different thing. They might keep the trap patterns and we might stay in that same tempo. I might set my daughter 147 beats per minute and play everything in half time. But I'm not using an 808 kick and 808 snare anymore.
And if I'm using an 808 high hat, I'm pitching it down. You know what I mean? I'm kind of making it feel a little bit more lo-fi. And that, I think, is what is starting to define R&B right now is not what it is exactly, but what it's not.
And it's not trap. So let's take that out of it. Not old school R&B. So let's get rid of all that shit too.
Like, just let's distill it to what it is. To sort of help our listeners think about that. I wanted to play for them Kailani's distraction, which you produced. In the bridge, it feels like you're playing to a very particular 90s R&B sound.
What's evoking that? How is that brought to life? Okay. So there's a story behind that.
So to sing her from S.W.B. to be the lead singer of S.W.B. is a girl named Coco. And I think she's from somewhere up east.
Like, I'm not exactly sure where. My guess would be like D.C. New York area, potentially. But for whatever reason, there are people in that area that say you in a very specific way.
And she has a very distinctive word of singing the word you. She tends to like put the vowel at the back of her throat. So it's like you, like it's very, and the vibrato is very fast. Like Coco's like you is just the way she pronounces it.
And so if you listen to all the 90s like S.W.B. records, whenever she says that word, she sounds like that. Here's the funny thing. S.W.V.
sort of helps shape R&B and how it sounded in the 90s. So a lot of other singers started picking up that enunciation on that word and on that vowel. So 90s R&B when you listen to it, a lot of other singers are singing it in pronouncing it the same way. So this is a conversation that Kaylani has.
She pays a lot of attention to that kind of shit too. So I was sitting there having a conversation about that. And she's like, we should just do a pre-chorus where I'm saying you in that way. So when you listen to the pre-chorus, I need you.
So then that sort of inspired us to make that pre-chorus feel like it could have been an S.W.V. pre-chorus. So even the backgrounds of that song are modeled after there's a song called, I guess, a whole week in the lead. There's a background arrangement in that record that doesn't really follow the lyric of the lead.
It sort of supports it with extra lyrics. So we did that in the pre-chorus for distraction. And that sort of inspired me to make that whole thing feel like an homage to the 90s. That's where that sonic came from.
The bridge is an extension of that. The sound selection is the, yeah, that's exactly what it is. It's an old school DX7. And so you're getting this really belly sort of cool tone happening and it's a very baby face 1990s thing.
You know what I'm saying? So shout out to Brian Alexander Morgan by the way, he's the producer of a lot of that S.W.V. We go from the bridge or it happens in the pre-chorus as well. You get this very 90s R&B thing.
You think you're in one world and then you get this trap, wind down snare thing. Yeah. Hell yeah. Definitely.
And then what world are we in? At that point, we are going back to the trap inspired R&B. You know what's funny? I was listening to you guys's podcast on, Debbie Lovato.
Sorry, not sorry. I'm glad you heard it. And one of you mentioned something that really made me laugh, man. You guys said that that feel right there sounded like a whole track was sort of just falling apart.
Like, I thought that was pretty cool. It's actually a really good example of the energy we want to create. Sort of a surprise moment where you think everything is falling apart. And then surprise, you know what I mean?
You can slap in the face with this trap 808 that happens right on the one. So it's there for that reason. It's also there to sort of bring you to cross you from one genre to another within the song without it sort of abruptly happening. At one point, you're listening to 90s R&B.
And at the very next moment, you're listening to a trap R&B. So this feel that happens is a transition between those two spaces. And once we hit the hook, yeah, we're definitely doing trap R&B at that point. When we were listening to distraction at the car over here, we were like, it feels like you were just saying like this cool combination of 90s R&B and contemporary trap music.
Like, is the 90s a big reference point when you're producing tracks? Like, is that maybe the prime time of R&B? No, I would definitely not say that. It is the prime time of R&B.
I think R&B has not had a proper golden age yet. I think it's had moments where it's shined. I think that the 90s influence from that record, picking that influence and picking that vibe had less to do with the fact that we were doing R&B music and more to do with the fact that the artist I was working with at the time was inspired by that. You know, I'm a record producer.
And one of our jobs is to be the mirror for the artist. So, you know, that's one thing I always say, we're going to produce a service industry. So when the artist walks in and says, I'm really inspired by R&B music from the 90s, you go, all right. Which is why one of the biggest things I say as a producer is to know and be informed of the nuances of all those different genres.
Because you never know who's going to walk through the door and say, oh man, let's do some 60s air of funk. Or let's do some 70s air of funk. There's a difference. So it's like, it's good to know those nuances as a producer.
When she walked through the door and she said, I'm inspired by 90s R&B. I knew exactly what the sound set was. You know what I mean? What to pick from.
And I knew what modern elements to still include. So that it would just not make an throwback record. It's interesting because I think part of my age and what I was listening to, also these sort of unique sonic characteristics of music that was made in the late 1990s, literally just because of the way that records were produced. There's like a very particular sound that I zoom in on.
And I think for a long time I had felt that like, you know, Mariah Carey kind of sound was like, oh, that's R&B, but it's much broader than that. Mariah, I think when she first came out, I don't necessarily, I mean, she was an R&B artist, but she sort of represented the sort of more rhythmic, less urban, less urban is the wrong way to put that. You know, you had Jodice and then you had Mariah Carey, you know, and they were out around the same time. You know, Jodice was R&B, like a distilled form of pure R&B essence.
Mariah, she implemented like a lot of pop elements into her music, but very soulful still. So I think what we're establishing here is that R&B is a broad category that encompasses a large history of black music and that it as a genre is a moving target. Is that accurate? That's very accurate.
It's like at one point R&B was like this star and it expanded and expanded and expanded and now it's sort of this nebula of influence that every genre is pulling from. But there's this new smaller star that's still defining itself right now as a genre. And I don't think we'll see what it will eventually become until maybe two or three years from now. I think in two or three years we'll know, oh, this is definitively R&B, but right now you still have these huge variances like you got your Daniel Caesar's and then you got your jakwises and their new artists and the genre and they're both R&B artists and they're both male R&B artists, but they're very, very different.
You know what I mean? What are you hearing that is developing and is it making its way into your music? It is definitely making its way into the music that I make. There's a record that her has called Hard Place.
It's an amazing song and it's literally just a live drum break and a guitar and a bass and her voice. The drums are mixed hard so it's like you're not listening to something that's just a soft sort of drum break happening through like it's still something you could thump but it's so straight forward and it borrows from a lot of the folkier R&B elements from the past. And this is exactly what I'm talking about. You have your harder drum elements but then you have this sort of borrowing from throwback and I think that's what's happening with a lot of R&B right now.
Whereas even five, six years ago, the production elements of R&B and the vibes from R&B tended to be more about interesting quirky clever sonics. Let's see if we can make this 808 bend up into the keyboard that then bends back down into the 808 like I'm sitting there doing cross phase between instruments and I've done that before. I think today the simplicity of it and that's what R&B is sort of distilling itself down to is a simpler form, is making its way into the music that I make. The best example is this.
I like to eat right? Sushi. Sushi is so simple. It's literally, I'm talking about sushi.
I'm not talking about party sushi where it's like sauces and creams and roe and all this and I'm talking about rice and fish and that's all it is and it's very simple and on its surface it looks like a very simple thing. But the complexity that goes into these two simple ingredients, the process, you know how they make sushi rice, it takes a lot. It's the same process with picking the fish. All these complex ideas get distilled down to this one ingredient and added to another ingredient and it looks and feels simple but you know the difference between a good sushi spot and a bad sushi spot.
R&B is the same way. And if it's done right, it sounds simple but it's profound. And I think that hard place record is a good example of that. Focus is another good example of that.
It's another record called focus which is literally kicks, snare and arpeggiated harp and I think in 808 and there's a drum fill. There's like a drum roll fill that happens every 8 bars, every 16 bars and that's it. That's the whole production. And there's not even, I don't even think there's any background vocals in there.
It's just her as a lead which is what a lot of R&B records are doing right now anyway. It's like a lead. If you listen to the distraction, it's, well that was more like before you. Listen to the distraction, it's like there's a stack on the chorus and it's harming these everywhere in the hook.
Today I listen to R&B records and they're single lead vocals. So yeah, I think what's happening is R&B is distilling itself down to figure out what it is at a basic level. Once it establishes itself gets a foothold, becomes like a mainstream form because R&B to me is a brand new form right now. R&B as a genre is brand spanking new.
Like I said, the old R&B genre has diffused into, it's not a genre anymore. It's, it's, people are inspired by it. People are influenced by it. But it's not a genre anymore.
It's just, it's like jazzes. Jazzes like this diffused form. And even though it still exists as a genre, people do perform jazz records. Now you'll have somebody use a jazz chord progression in a pop song for instance.
So it's an influence now more than it is an actual genre. R&B is that right now. The old-school form of R&B is that right now. But this what we have here today is a brand new form.
And it's exciting, man. It excites me a lot. Like I feel lucky to be alive in a time when a new genre of music is being shaped. Is there a recent production of yours that highlights some of those changes you're talking about?
Like we're listening to distraction. We hear those crunchy R&B chords you were talking about. We hear that specific sonic selection of like the X7 synthesizer. And then you're saying maybe the trap drums that you hear on distraction would sound different today.
Like is there a recent record you've done that might show that evolution? So there's actually a record on that same project that showcases the beginning of that evolution for me. It's one of my three songs that I've produced and my favorite songs I've ever produced. And this is one of them.
It's a song called Everything is Yours. It is very simple. I'm not even playing a full chord progression. I'm literally paying a root note in the fifth through the whole record.
Basically. But you're still getting the gist of the chord. So there's that sound. There's an 808.
There's a kick. There's a snare. And there are trap drums in there. But they're pitched all the way down.
Like they don't sound like trap drums. And it feels something that's a little more akin to something that would have done today from production standpoint. Because at the time I remember thinking how do we do this without doing trap? Like how do we do this and make it feel forward, so to forward leaning?
And this is an arrogant statement. And I know a lot of producers are going to think I'm feeling myself by saying this. I feel like that production is something that today would still feel very forward leaning. This is a track that we did like three years ago.
So I, and I'm proud of that fact. Listen, that doesn't happen very often. So I'm very proud of that fact. That production is very simple.
It's a lead driven song, which at the time you had that, but not that often. And then my 808 is like rolling around in the hook, which at that time wasn't really a thing. Like you had pitched 808s, but they weren't really, there wasn't like a portamento 808 thing sort of happening in R&B music especially. You might have had it in like EDM trap, but you didn't have an R&B really.
I'm using the 808 more like a portamento, like a low end portamento instrument. Portamento being sort of a gato. I mean, in other words my portamento is pulled all the way up. Yeah, almost acting as like an upright bass being bowed and just sort of sliding around.
Exactly right. That's what it feels like. Portamento is Italian for sliding around. And so this 808 is just made that up actually.
I don't know if that's true. That sounds right. You know what? I'm going to tell people that and act like I know what I'm talking about.
Portamento actually means sliding around. Innovating on language right here. Beautiful. One of the albums that really caused this, Tizzy of Mine was the new Chance record.
He does the song with John Legend as the opening piece. Chance is one of these artists where he's a rapper. He's doing R&B's in Gospels. So he's always kind of like all over the place.
How can we conceptualize this record? I'm inspired by Chance, man. I really am. He's a guy that's not afraid to take genres and really mix them.
He's got this record problems that, you know, it's like he just takes Gospel and trap and throws them together. Chance is a master at that. And I think he's got some verding expectations too, which is what I imagine he did on the, or what intended to do and succeeded in doing on the John Legend track. So perhaps we should think about this more in your first categorization of R&B, which is part of like the larger history, rather than this emerging genre that you're targeting.
Well, here's the thing. Chance to me is not an R&B artist. Chance is a hip hop artist. And there's a difference.
I think that Chance, like a lot of hip hop is being influenced by this larger influence R&B, sort of the Nebula cloud of R&B. But if you asked him if he was an R&B artist, he probably would say he doesn't define himself as any specific genre. But to me, Chance is a hip hop artist. And he's that.
And the good thing about hip hop now is that it is so diverse. And there are so many options and so many things to grab and hold and things to do. So I love that about Chance, but I wouldn't necessarily consider him an R&B artist per say. Like to me, that genre is more for people like Keilani or SZA or Summer Walker or Khalid.
Like those artists to me are R&B artists. It's a little different. One of the things that strikes me about talking with you is that I wonder if there's a difference between being a producer today and perhaps then special. Like this is what I do.
I specialize in this one thing, this one, this R&B sound. And I've mastered this. But talking with you today, it's like, whoa, as a producer today, you need to not only have this encyclopedic knowledge of music history where an artist can come in and say, I want to do 70s funk, not 60s funk. And you're like, OK, I got that.
And you have to be at the same time aware of everything that's happening in 2019 with music. So you can do all this genre of mashing. That seems like you have to do a lot of homework, I imagine, to say, on top of all this. And to be honest with you, I don't necessarily consider it homework.
It's one of the reasons why I became a record producer is because I just love listening to music. I listen to all of it. I listen to a lot of music growing up. I listen to a lot of music now.
I go home and I listen to music and make my wife sick. It's like, you know what I mean? I listen to music quite a bit. So this is going to sound arrogant.
But I think I have a gift for identifying influences and genres. I think I can hear a production and say, oh, yeah, they got that from blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, I know where they got that from. Oh, OK, that piece feels like it came from such a, like, that's a billy holiday reference.
You know what I mean? Like, I pay attention to all those different pieces. Music comes out and constantly listening to see two things. How those genres from the past sort of coalesced into that production, into that song, that production.
But seeing the direction of that also gives me a way to predict where it's going to go in the future. You know what I mean? It's like watching the road behind you and sort of guessing which way it's going. You know what I mean?
I think that helps you as a producer. One question I get asked a lot in interviews is, what advice would you give producers coming up? Get that question on. The answer to that question is always, know your history.
Know the history of your music. Know all the references. Know what the difference is between a Brian May guitar tone or now Rogers guitar tone. Know what guitar is they played.
Listen up to fabulous. Thank you for joining us. Really appreciate it. Thank you, man.
I really appreciate it. OK, so here's what I'm thinking. I'm right to be confused by a chances record. Yes.
Not only has R&B always been a moving target, but according to Oak, it's an essential influence to much of today's pop music. And as a genre, it's still changing. Maybe chances record doesn't fit into the new subgenre. Yeah.
But it seems to be influenced, undoubtedly, by the large category. Right. Like something that came up when we discussed Lizzo's recent album as well. It's like, where do you slot some of contemporary music?
I mean, certainly with a track like Hot Shower that maybe like we said belongs in hip hop. But then there are other tracks on this chance album that it's like, where would these go? You use this phrase with Lizzo like the end of genre. And if we accept that we might be getting to that point, the Billboard charts and our conceptions of like, what is pop versus hip hop versus R&B will get increasingly for us, right?
Certainly. But the other thing is that all of these things are moving and trying to catch up with each other, right? Listen to behavior is changing. What audience is joy is also changing.
The music is changing. And Billboard and industry groups have to keep up and try to figure out what do we call this thing so that we can figure out how to market it and highlight it. And so everything is constantly in this flux and this terminology ends up feeling a lot looser. Right.
And yet at the same time, I like what I love about talking to Oak is how you get the sense that he is a master of genre. Yeah. Or what we might call like historical genres or something. He uses that almost assassin-like ability to instantly capture and communicate a sense of genre in order to completely mess with your sense of genre.
So it's, yeah, I don't know. This has been very illuminating. I'm not sure that I'm any further along understanding any particular given sound because I don't have Oaks Encyclopedia knowledge of blamey R&B thing from 1863. But I do feel validated in my confusion and feel excited to listen.
Yeah, embrace the confusion. This episode of Switch on Pop was produced by Richard Armstrong and me Charlie Harding. Megan Lubin is our production fellow, Brendan McFarland, mixes, edits and masters of the show, certarities or community manager, Nishat Karwa and Liz Nelson are our executive producers were a production of the Vox Media Podcast Network. You can find more episodes at switchedonpop.com or anywhere you get podcasts, Apple Podcast App, Spotify, Radio Public, iHeartRadio.
We're on there. I also want to shout out Chris Malamphe's article. You want to go deeper into the world of the history of R&B on Billboard charts. You'll want to read his piece.
I know you got soul. The trouble with Billboard's R&B hip-hop chart. I'll post it in our show notes. Chris is the chart whisper.
Oh, no doubt. Hit us up on social media. Ask switchedonpop. We love getting your recommendations.
We are on Twitter on Instagram. That's switched on pop. We'll be back in another week. And until then.
Thanks for listening.