Babyface is adamant R&B music isn’t “dead.”
In recent years, there has been debate online whether the genre is still popular, with Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs recently asking his Twitter followers, “Who killed R&B?”
But in an interview for Vulture, legendary producer Babyface – real name Kenneth Edmonds – argued that the genre is simply “changing.”
“R&B is not dead, it’s forever changing, and it goes into other generations and they hear it a little bit differently than we hear it,” he said. “I feel like my job is to always try to understand that and not fight it but roll with it and never go to the point to where I’m trying to do it completely myself, where it looks like I’m out of context.”
Babyface went on to note that he has noticed more songs are like “conversations” and don’t have a “big bridge.”
He also pointed to the likes of Summer Walker and Kehlani as examples of stars to watch.
“Where radio used to be the gatekeeper, and if you couldn’t get through radio and then that’s it, kids are proving today that you don’t quite need that. There’s other ways to get there, and so that gives a certain amount of independence. It gives them power because they don’t have to wait for the record company to decide what’s going to be their single,” the 63-year-old added.