It’s been a long discussion for some music genres that they seem finished. They had their time on the charts, with their cycle seemingly been closed. But, the last 3 years we’ve seen many music genres making huge comebacks, like Drum N Bass (in UK and Europe), with Country music in US and Techno which now conquers the biggest festivals (again after two decades).

Well, there is one music genre that really had its’ time throughout 90s and early 00s.

RnB music spent too many years topping the charts, it became Pop, too mainstream, but it defined whole eras of music, being played on the radio, in clubs, everywhere that people were listening to music. RnB (on the form that most have it on their mind) started from the 80s with Bobby Brown being the King back then (of that sound that transfromed and grew up many generations). Later on came Bel Biv Devoe, Boyz II Men, Mariah Carey (being the Queen of Pop-RnB), En Vogue, SWV, Toni Braxton, Dru Hil, just to name a few artists (there are loads of acts within the 90s that charted with huge RnB hits). It was all coming from the producers, they were delivering hit records for many many years.

Then came the Hip Hop/RnB with Puff Daddy (Diddy) making a whole new sound by the end of 90s that many immitaded, most of them transformed it in a sensual RnB.

When Usher appeared on the scene, he wasn’t the only one with that sound. But he was young, had a great voice, dancing skills and developed into a performer on stage, like no one else. He did everything! And then he dropped in the beggining of the new millenium, his album “8701” that changed everything on the RnB scene.”U Remind Me” was HUGE! I was there, playing the hits on the radio, even made my own RnB parties in Greece, with hundreds of people coming over and dancing till the morning! So many artists quickly changed their sound into RnB music and delivered many hits, many albums.

And then came “Confessions” the album that conquered the world and defined the charts in 2004. “Yeah!”

A few years after (somewhere around 2007-2008) the RnB craze was so huge, that every artist (old and new) almost every week had something to release. It came to become so full of immitations that the genre itself started to dissappear. It was over (with the classic RnB sound we knew), though it lasted more than a decade, nearly two. RnB music started transforming into an electronic form, the DJs started making beats and many artists followed their lead and the whole industry changed the sound. It was no longer RnB music. They somehow ended the era. Everything’s been written, every beat has been made, every lyric has been sung. There was so much RnB made, that future generations don’t need to record something new.

But… there is no genre that dies, everything in music is a cycle. It closes but opens again at some point. And this is the point in 2023 that we’re living in. Last week I saw Diddy taking a Global Icon Award at MTV VMA, watched Tony Toni Tone making a comeback with an interview, saw Toni Braxton at the hairdresser making her 1993 look again (seems to me she’s going to ‘Breathe Again’ with a 30th anniversary) and Mariah Carey being a Dreamlover on Instagram (another celebration of a classic album, 30 years of ‘Music Box’). Timbaland with Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake released “Keep Going Up”, trying to remind us that “Give It To Me” was a keypoint in music (so, let’s make another one – that didn’t go as expected). And then…. SuperBowl. Usher on Halftime Show. All within 10 days!

The marketing in US is paving the way to make a huge RnB comeback and not with new artists and new stars. They bring back the real RnB stars that were there writing the history of this genre. And they bring them back with awards, calling them kings and queens again, reminiscing an era that seemed to have ended more than a decade ago. Usher is the best performer to do so, it’s an excellent choice for Halftime Show, so that RnB music can be crowned again as one of the greatest genres of the 90s, 00s.

New generations know nothing about all the above that I mentioned, only the people above 40 really lived this era and it’s about time the kids learn and listen to some cool older stuff that made us love, live, dance and grow up.