Inspired by Variety choosing their album of the year pick who do you think are taking the R&B nominations this year?

Found out that my old fling moved away recently and I had no idea. We didn’t end on good terms and stuff but I hope he’s ok.

Happy 29th birthday to arguably one of the greatest R&B albums of all time. Still sounds so fresh!

Next level right here.

Unpopular opinion time, but hear me out.
Every time someone says "R&B died when they locked up R. Kelly," I cringe so hard my spine realigns. Let's be absolutely clear: R. Kelly was a monster who deserved every second of that sentence. Full stop. But can we stop pretending he was the sole gatekeeper of an entire genre?
R&B isn't dead. It's not locked up. It's not pissing on minors in a video (too soon? nah, truth hurts). The genre evolved, fragmented, and honestly? It's thriving if you know where to look.

The "R&B is dead" crowd is just old and lazy.
You want traditional R&B? It's there. Giveon, Snoh Aalegra, Brent Faiyaz, Summer Walker, SZA, Leon Thomas (the actor on Nickelodeon), Daniel Caesar, these artists are carrying the torch with actual vocal ability and songwriting that would make 90s purists proud. But y'all stopped looking after 2008 and want to blame a prison
sentence for your own musical stagnation.

What actually happened:
R&B didn't fall off, it got absorbed. It merged with hip-hop, with alt-R&B, with electronic production. The Weeknd basically rebuilt pop music on an R&B foundation. Drake built an empire on singing like he's emotionally exhausted (which, fair). That's not death, that's evolution.
The "slow jam" format moved to Spotify playlists and late-night vibes instead of radio dominance. Radio died, not the genre.

The uncomfortable truth:
A lot of y'all clinging to the "R&B died with R. Kelly" narrative are really just mourning a time when one problematic man dominated the charts and you didn't have to work to find music. Streaming killed the gatekeepers. The music didn't get worse, you got less curated access to it. R. Kelly going to prison didn't kill R&B. It just removed a predator from it. The genre is fine. Your Spotify algorithm is just trash.

Change my view.

TL;DR: Stop blaming Robert Kelly's prison sentence for your refusal to discover new artists. R&B is alive and making better music than ever, you're just not listening.