Mary J. Blige: 'Popular Music' When Adele and Justin Do R&B

Mary J. Blige on the State of R&B Music: ‘They Wanna Call it Popular Music’ When ‘Adele and Justin Timberlake’ Do it

Diddy, who has been involved in a few controversies over the course of his career evoked another one on his Twitter page earlier this week. After asking “who killed R&B?” he spoke to his protege, R&B singer, and actress, Mary J. Blige about the subject. She had a few things to say about it.

Who killed R&B?
— LOVE (@Diddy) August 17, 2022

Diddy and Mary J. went on Instagram Live to discuss this topic. Hollywood Unlocked captured the video and posted it to its Instagram account.

Mary went on to state that “You can’t kill something that’s in our DNA,” said Blige. “It’s gonna keep transitioning from generation to generation to generation to generation. They was trying to kill it.”

She speaks about the legacy of R&B in that our children’s children will continue to listen to it through the generations.

She also adds, “Before I say what I’m gonna say, let me just say this: I want to thank all the radio stations around the country that are playing R&B music and sincerely to support it. But you know, a lot of radio stations killed it for the same thing that Tank was saying. They’re gonna jump on the bandwagon of whatever the hottest stuff is – but let me just say this. We have to keep ourselves alive as R&B people, as R&B singers.”

She goes on to say that they can’t kill artists like Chaka Khan, Jazmine Sullivan, Etta James, Dinah Washington, SWV, Aretha Franklin, and Sam Cooke. Expressing that R&B is still in the clubs, giving props to younger artists like Chris Brown and Usher, saying R&B “can’t be dead” when you have “so many dope people” out here doing their thing.

But, she also went out on to say that when white artists do R&B music, the radio stations and media wanna call it popular music.

“They wanna call it popular music with Adele and Justin Timberlake get ahold to it, so now it’s popular music. You know what I’m saying? But it’s been popular music! We’ve been had it!”