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ThisisRnB TV: Claude Kelly Talks State of R&B Music, White Soul vs. Black Soul

Posted on April 24th, 2012 by ThisIsRnB in INTERVIEWS, THISISRNB EXCLUSIVES, THISISRNB TV |

ThisisRnB TV recently caught up with 3x Grammy nominated songwriter Claude Kelly for an in-depth interview. In this clip Claude talks about the fragile state of R&B and Soul music today. He discusses the argument over white soul artists receiving more mainstream attention than black artists currently…and how and why this has become a trend and the new cool.

The hitmaker continues to address the importance and need for R&B and Soul music in pop culture.

“We were being taught about life with our music, if you hadn’t been heartbroken before, you had already heard about it from somebody, so when that came along you could refer to something, and that’s not there anymore… I’m not sure how it will be fixed, and That scares me… It’s almost like being black and being soulful is no longer cool, and that’s scary.”

Check out the clip above and stay tuned for more from our chat with Claude Kelly, coming soon!

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Codine
Codine

Umm they showed the album sales at the beginning... Robin Thick 156,000...Jill Scott 424,000...Anthony Hamilton 221,000...Ledisi 214,000 While I can't speak to what drives the industry promoting artists (as I don't work in music) I can say from an R&B fan's point of view, race has nothing to do with the success. Jill Scott, Anthony Hamilton, and Ledisi outsold Robin Thicke; why? he is more mainstream, yet his album was simply not as good. Adele outsold all of them because her material was HEAD AND SHOULDERS better and more musically diverse. Sorry it is true and it doesn't have a damn thing to do with race. When he mentions "black artists" not being respected, he is referring to pop music - commercial artists that put out shit like Soulja Boy. Fact of the matter is "black artists" absolutely dominate popular music now. pop = a hip hop/r&b/dance fusion right now, not rock or alt music like it used to be. R&B is not dying it simply is being made in another country. Watch Emeli Sande take over this year. The article should be "Why do british artists make such better soul music these days?"... Amy Winehouse, Adele, Jessie J, Ellie Goulding, Joss Stone, Mark Ronson, James Morrison...

big boi
big boi

The artists he mentioned are neo-soul not rnb. Rnb is R kelly chris brown, trey songz dream monica etc