What ever happened to R&B?

Ginuwine would set the mood for you & me.

What ever happened to the Misses & the Mister?

Now I Gotta Listen To Them Degrade Ya’ Sista.

Back in the daze music used to mean something.

Nowadays they ain’t really saying nothing, but

Got your hands on some change…

Now they showing you Love

And you feeling good

Cause now you got em’ hatin’

You got a girl they could get in their imagination

But tell me is it Love?

Or is it just infatuation…

With the money?

Still debatin’

#LetsGrow #LoveAlways

Big shoutout to @50Cent for being thought-provoking and taking some dope pics for Instagram. Check out his account.

curated by w.d. herstun

Credits & Wildenotes

Music Written & Produced By Flow the DJ.

Lyrics Edited For Poetry and By Herstun.

Make sure that you click the Soundcloud on this one. I love this song. It hit home in some serious ways. But even besides that, his voice plays perfectly over the beat. Melodic. It’s a beautiful, thought-provoking song.

I disagree with his points about music. I think that the music industry has changed. It is so fragmented that music is truly what you make it. And then the continuing trend of fusing rap into rhythm & blues deserves recognition too. All in all, There are opportunities to be introduced to artists like Flow the DJ that rap about consciousness and love. You just have to be willing to look in all the places. You ain’t gotta look too far for flow though! Make sure you check him out on his Social Media accounts and YouTube!

Follow Flow on Instagram + Youtube + SoundCloud

And if you love his poetry then check out his visual poem featuring American Artist, Jeff Manning.

50 Cent

Why on Earth did I feature 50 Cent so heavily?

Symbolism

Well, 50 made a name for himself with his fit body, slurry flow, and… Money, cars, and turning up in the club.

Then, the line Flo says – “Got your hands on some change”- 50 Cent, ironically, is a metaphor for change. (Ironic because his shenanigans do feel like more of the same from the sector of the industry 50 operates in. he’s not exactly the MOST renaissance african–american man walking these American streets.)

Finally, I started scrolling his Instagram.

And boy, based on his social media images and captions, he fit the song so well for me.

This isn’t a reflection of how I feel about 50 Cent. I just think that the line is so thin. I don’t know a lot of these artists well enough to know whether they suffer for their pursuit of materialistic pleasure. Additionally, a lot of rappers are businessmen first. Literally, hustlers born into environments of scarcity. And, that changes outlooks and patterns of behavior.

**Oh, and just for the curious – That isn’t 50 Cent’s girlfriend. Just a woman from a photoshoot that he did on his Instagram. I want the readers to be aware that I manipulated 50’s Instagram to suit the storyline of this poem. I am in no way suggesting that 50 Cent is who Flow the DJ had in mind when writing the bars. But boy did he just fit, so to speak.

So, 50 just became the ideal candidate for this piece. I admit it’s different swagger from the usual #FlowFriday BUT, I am interested to hear Flo’s feedback on this curation, (and you too).

Questions Posed:

Can you have money, pursue money, make money, without being completely shaped by it? Is money what happened to R&B?

And does the world that we reminisce, via nineties love and R&B throwbacks, actually exist? Or are we idealizing a time that was rife with its own struggles?

[By the way, I freakin love me some fifty. “You can find me in the club…” 😎😉]