R&B has been slowly falling off. A lot of people either stop listening to it or a lot of artists just stop producing it as a whole. According to Statista only 38.9% of people listen to R&B. People spend most of their time listening to K-pop, Hip-Hop, Country or Rock, which is okay, but out of all genres of music, why is R&B not the most popular anymore?

R&B, or rhythm and blues, is a genre of music that was created by African American culture during the Harlem Renaissance. As years passed, the genre started to die off as other genres were growing in popularity. 

Even though R&B is not necessarily dead, it’s breaking off into more sub-categories such as Alternative, Souk, Funk and Neo-soul than staying as one genre as a whole. A lot of the newer artists lack that sense of creativity when it comes to R&B. 

Artists utilize autotune way more than they should. I enjoy listening to R&B. It’s a genre that I could relate to as a person. It has always been enjoyable to listen to, but due to the change in the music industry, fewer people have been listening to it. 

Sadly, it went from popular genre to the least popular. We’ve seen K-pop grow in popularity with many fans. I always thought R&B gave a lot of soul. Out of all genres, R&B is more relatable than the others. The other music, like Hip-Hop, all sounds the same.

With the growing popularity of K-pop and Hip-Hop it leaves R&B struggling to keep up with it. It’s either “lame” or “too slow.”

When it was popular in the 2000s and 1990s, everyone seemed to enjoy it, but in today’s society, people are tired of it because their parents played it too much when they were young. 

Since artists are relying on social media, it seems like R&B artists aren’t getting the same recognition as other artists in different genres of music. The music industry isn’t promoting enough to attract more attention to it. 

In an interview with Complex, R&B artist Summer Walker expressed that she didn’t like the direction that the genre is going. She expressed, “I don’t like it. Well, it’s no shade, I’m just an old school girl.” 

As much as I hate to agree, the direction it’s going is not good. There are still good artists that make music like Coco Jones, SZA, Chris Brown and Kehlani, but the shift of music doesn’t help their platform of continuing with the genre. 

But with other artists that are new to the genre, it does not feel as authentic as artists who have been in the industry for a longer period of time. 

Even though it’s not fully “dead” in today’s world, it’s definitely not as popular, relatable and authentic as it was years ago.