Top 10 People Who Most Helped Ruin R&B

Alright, this one might upset some people, but it needs to be said. I'm not saying that all of these people are bad artists or that they aren't talented. I'm simply pointing out how some of their contributions have negatively impacted R&B.

For this list, I'm referring to the current state of R&B, how it's now basically non-existent and unrecognizable, and how it's been completely watered down from what it originally was. We'll be looking at different artists and producers who all played their part in contributing to this.

The Top Ten

  1. The-Dream

    Terius Youngdell Nash, better known by his stage name The-Dream, is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known for writing hit songs such as Umbrella by Rihanna and Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) by Beyoncé. He has also released several solo albums, including Love/Hate and... read more

    He started to combine R&B with hip hop and pop regularly, and his songs (and songs he wrote for others) usually followed a simple, very similar formula. The production in most of his songs was almost identical.

    He also had a habit of using autotune, even for singers who didn't actually need it. Many of his lyrics were lazy and lacked true thought. They were all very surface level. To top things off, he never had a strong voice in the first place, and by 2011, his sound had already become outdated.

  2. Rico Love

    Rico's famous tag in the beginning of every song he was a part of was "I think this one's for the radio," and man, he wasn't lying. Most of the songs he wrote and produced sounded like they were trying so hard to be hits, combining hip hop or pop with R&B, just like The-Dream, and they lacked true soul.

    His approach to songwriting and production was even more formulaic than Dream's. Very short verses, choruses consisting of excessive repeated words or phrases. However, unlike The-Dream, Rico at least had some pretty nice moments early on. "Your Love" by Pleasure P, for example.

    Thing is, these were never the songs that would become hits, and some of his best work was unreleased. Many of his beats sound almost identical to each other.

  3. T-Pain

    Faheem Rashad Najm, better known by his stage name T-Pain, is an American recording artist and music producer from Tallahassee, Florida. He gained fame in the mid-2000s for his use of Auto-Tune and his blend of hip-hop and R&B. T-Pain has won multiple Grammy Awards and released several successful albums... read more

    He definitely helped to blur the lines between R&B, hip hop, and pop, and obviously introduced autotune into R&B.

    Also, I would even make the argument that he paved the way for guys like The-Dream to come into R&B and be embraced. While he definitely had some good songs early on, they were never the songs that were released as singles. He was more known for singing hooks on other people's songs, which helped to hurt true R&B artists in the long run. Instead of getting an R&B singer to sing hooks, now rappers would just call T-Pain or Akon instead.

  4. Keith Sweat

    Keith Douglas Sweat is an American R&B and soul singer-songwriter, record producer, actor, and radio personality. He is recognized as a pioneer of the new jack swing genre, which blends soul, R&B, and hip-hop rhythms. Sweat's debut album Make It Last Forever (1987) went multi-platinum and established... read more

    Yes, I said it. Keith Sweat.

    Keith lowered the bar for singing talent in R&B, because let's be honest, the man had an awful voice. He couldn't hold a candle to real singers like Johnny Gill, Gerald Levert, and Aaron Hall.

    Secondly, many of his songs were very formulaic and sounded way too similar. Apart from the hits that everybody remembers, much of his discography was interchangeable, and his lyrics were very basic and poorly written.

  5. R. Kelly

    Robert Sylvester Kelly (born January 8, 1967), known professionally as R. Kelly, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and convicted sex offender. He has been credited with helping to redefine R&B and hip hop, earning nicknames such as "the King of R&B," "the King of Pop-Soul," and the... read more

    Okay, this one's controversial, but hear me out. While he definitely had some great stuff, he also:

    1. Helped to combine hip hop with R&B, and he pushed the "R&B bad boy" persona heavily. He made it seem as if, as an R&B artist, now you had to compete with the rappers, and you had to be more "raw" or edgy to be respected.

    2. He was horribly inconsistent. 12 Play isn't as great as you remember. The songs that were good really were good, but the other half of the album, with him trying to be a rapper, doesn't hold up as well. There were many far stronger R&B albums from this time, but this one always gets put up on a pedestal for some reason. This goes into my third point...

    3. People treat him as if he's God-like, which is disrespectful to other R&B singers and artists who were just as good, some even better. People act as if R&B belongs to him, or that other R&B can never come close to him. I argue the point that if you were to take him out of the genre completely, R&B would still be great. In fact, in some ways it may be better.

    4. Kelly helped to popularize the overly profane and graphic lyrics in R&B we hear today, and helped to take the love and soul out of the music.

    5. He made it too much about hits. When people call him the king of the genre, one of the first reasons they give as to why is because "he's got a lot of hits." In my opinion, this is harmful to true R&B music.

    6. His influence is undeniable, but that isn't necessarily a good thing. It can be argued that Kelly helped to influence some of the modern artists, like The-Dream or Eric Bellinger, who feel more like they're just trying to make hits rather than actually produce any soulful, true timeless music.

  6. Lil Jon

    Jonathan Smith, better known by his stage name Lil Jon, is an American rapper, songwriter, record producer, entrepreneur, DJ, and actor. He is widely recognized for popularizing the crunk subgenre of hip hop in the early 2000s. Lil Jon has collaborated with numerous artists and is known for energetic... read more

    He wasn't as harmful as the others, but he did play a small part by mixing R&B with crunk in the mid-2000s.

    Because of this, you had people accepting acts like Ciara as legitimate R&B artists, when really they were more like pop stars making R&B-flavored music.

  7. Chris Brown

    Christopher Maurice "Chris" Brown (born May 5, 1989) is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and actor. Born in Tappahannock, Virginia, he participated in his church choir and several local talent shows from a young age. He gained international notoriety in 2009 for his physical assault of singer... read more

    He started out with promise, but even by his second album, and definitely his third, he veered heavily into pop and EDM, and eventually hip hop. Yet, people still treated him as if he was a top-tier R&B artist, and he was still labeled R&B just because of the color of his skin.

    He also helped to further normalize using autotune regularly in R&B, as well as, later in his career, the quantity over quality approach to releasing music.

  8. Sean Garrett

    He was another one who redefined what an R&B hit would be in the mid to late 2000s, and not in a good way.

    He also helped to mix R&B with hip hop and pop, to the point where a song like "Break Up" was able to become seen as an R&B hit. To this day, it is Mario's second biggest hit after "Let Me Love You," even though Mario has many far better songs that never cracked the top 20.

  9. Timbaland

    Timothy Zachery "Tim" Mosley, known professionally as Timbaland, is an American record producer, rapper, singer, songwriter, DJ, and record executive. He gained prominence in the mid-1990s for his work with Aaliyah and Missy Elliott, and has since produced chart-topping hits for Justin Timberlake, Jay-Z... read more

    This one is also going to be controversial. While he definitely had some solid moments early on, it's undeniable how much he blurred the lines between R&B and hip hop.

    He also normalized hip hop producers producing R&B. By the mid-2000s, it was hard to tell if his music was pop, hip hop, or R&B anymore.

  10. Puff Daddy

    Sean John Combs, also known by his stage names Puff Daddy, Puffy, P. Diddy, Diddy, Love, and Brother Love, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, actor, record producer, entrepreneur, and convicted felon.

    In September 2024, Combs was arrested on federal charges including sex trafficking, racketeering... read more

    This is an obvious one. He also started to mix hip hop and R&B together regularly, making both feel overly polished. The hip hop records started sounding too "soft," and the R&B had to have a hip hop edge to it.

    He also made it normal for an R&B act to sign to a hip hop record label, which worked well for some artists. However, this ultimately hurt true soul music in the long run.

    11. The Newcomers
  11. ?

    Jermaine Dupri

  12. ?

    Nick Cannon

    Nicholas Scott "Nick" Cannon is an American rapper, actor, comedian, entrepreneur, record producer, and radio and television personality. He began his career as a teenager on the Nickelodeon sketch comedy show All That. Cannon later hosted America's Got Talent, created the MTV comedy series Wild 'N Out... read more

    He sucks and I find him insanely annoying and corny, but I honestly don't think he's had that much of an influence on R&B to impact it in any way, nobody really ever took him seriously as a credible r&b artist.

    13. The Contenders

  13. Eric Bellinger

    Eric Bellinger Jr., born March 26, 1986, is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer from Los Angeles, California.

    He is best known for his work as a songwriter, writing for artists such as Chris Brown (most notably "New Flame"), Usher ("Lemme See"), and Justin Bieber ("Right Here").... read more

    To be fair, he probably hasn't had enough of an influence on R&B to ever truly negatively impact the genre. However, his small but extremely dedicated fanbase does treat him as if he is reinventing the genre or "bringing back real R&B."

    He is probably one of the reasons for R&B's downfall.

  14. Tory Lanez

    Daystar Peterson, known professionally as Tory Lanez, is a Canadian rapper and singer. He gained significant recognition for his mixtape Lost Cause and the hit singles "Say It" and "Luv." These tracks reached numbers 23 and 19 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, respectively.

  15. The Weeknd

    Abęl Makkonen Tesfaye, known professionally by his stage name The Weeknd, is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and record producer. He was born on February 16, 1990, in Toronto, Ontario. He began uploading music to YouTube in 2010 and later released several studio albums, including Kiss Land, Beauty Behind... read more

    It's because of artists like him that we now have a whole generation of kids who think they like R&B, but in reality have probably never listened to a Jaheim song, or even Musiq Soulchild, in their lives.

  16. Jason Derulo

    Jason Joel Desrouleaux, known professionally as Jason Derulo, is an American singer, songwriter, and dancer. He rose to fame with his debut single "Whatcha Say," which was released in 2009 and went triple platinum. Other hit singles include "Ridin' Solo," "In My Head," "Wiggle," "Talk Dirty," "Trumpets... read more

  17. Lil Debbie

  18. Meghan Trainor

    Meghan Elizabeth Trainor is an American singer and songwriter. Her work has been recognized with several awards and nominations, including a Grammy Award, the Music Business Association's Breakthrough Artist of the Year accolade, and two Billboard Music Awards. She rose to fame with her debut single... read more

  19. Nav (Rapper)

  20. Ty Dolla $ign

    Tyrone William Griffin Jr., born April 13, 1982, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He first gained major recognition in 2010 for his feature on YG's "Toot It and Boot It", a song he also wrote and produced for Def Jam Recordings. In the summer of 2013, he signed a record... read more

  21. Tank

    Durrell Babbs, born January 1, 1976, is an American R&B singer, songwriter, and record producer who performs under the name Tank. He was a member of the R&B supergroup TGT alongside Tyrese and Ginuwine. Tank is best known for his hit single Please Don't Go and his 2007 album Sex, Love & Pain, and he... read more

  22. Bobby Brown

    Robert Barisford Brown is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, actor, and rapper. He began his career in 1978 with the R&B and pop group New Edition and left the group in 1985 to pursue a solo career. Brown achieved major success with his 1988 album Don't Be Cruel, which included hit singles such... read more

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