Diddy has proclaimed the return of R&B music with the arrival of the debut EP from singer/songwriter Jozzy, the first signee on his new Love Records.
On Friday afternoon (February 24), Diddy took to Twitter to celebrate the arrival of Jozzy’s 10-track project Songs For Women, Free Game For N-ggas. With no hesitation, the veteran music exec pointed back to the moment in August 2022 when he proclaimed R&B was dead.
“When I told ya’ll RnB was dead, I was talking about the soul,” Diddy wrote. “It is what it is! I can tell you right now, IT’S BACK!!!”
“THIS IS A MASTERPIECE,” he wrote in a separate tweet, signing off with his most recent nickname, “LOVE.”
The Bad Boy mogul announced in May of last year that he was officially launching his new R&B label in collaboration with Motown Records. While his first course of action was expected to be the release his first solo album since 2006’s Press Play, Diddy soon followed up the announcement with the introduction of Jozzy as the label’s first artist, proclaiming her the Biggie Smalls of R&B.
A few months later, Diddy kicked off an online discussion about the current state of R&B. Things quickly got heated when Timbaland joined the conversation, with Diddy yelling at the legendary producer: “R&B is muthafuckin’ dead as of right now.”
The R&B debate continued on for three days, with the likes of Brent Faiyaz, Arin Ray, Chris Brown, Mary J. Blige and many more weighing in.
On August 20, Diddy took to Twitter to clarify his comments while explaining that starting the conversation had now brought attention to the genre.
“It’s been 3 days of the debate…This is the clarity of the message…It’s not disrespect to anybody,” the “Gotta Move On” hitmaker tweeted. “This conversation was out of love and me purposely wanting to bring attention to R&B!
“It was something that I saw the effect of the Hip hop and R&B balance,” he added. “That balance is honesty and realness when it comes together, melodies, vulnerability and most importantly LOVE!!! This message is that R&B game needs more love, vulnerability, support!!”
Despite comparing Jozzy to Biggie, Diddy wants to make it clear that he is by no means trying to recreate what he did with his first label.
“WE’RE NOT TRYING TO DUPLICATE BAD BOY!,” he tweeted on Friday. “THAT WAS BAD BOY! THIS IS THE LOVE ERA. EVERYTHING WE DO FROM THIS POINT ON IS GOING TO SEPARATE THOSE 2 ERAS BUT ALSO UNITE THEM IN THEIR GREATNESS!!
@143LOVERECORDS”
When he first announced the launch of Love Records, Diddy planned to leave Bad Boy behind completely.
However, once his son King Combs began finding his lane as an artist, Diddy says it was actually his idea to remain under the Bad Boy umbrella, thus forcing the elder Combs to revive the renowned imprint.
“I had stopped Bad Boy,” Diddy told Billboard in December. “Sometimes you gotta leave the game while it’s hot, you know? And a lot of things were changing with streaming and everything. And one day I woke up, he had a Bad Boy chain on, and I’m like ‘Bro, Bad Boy is on pause for a second…’ He’s keeping Bad Boy alive and taking it to the next level without even no coaching or prompting from me.
Now Diddy and King Combs — who last year became the first father-son duo in history to top the charts simultaneously — are gearing up for a potential Spring faceoff, as both announced they would be dropping new albums close to the top of the year.
Diddy has been teasing a musical comeback for some time. Last year, the Harlem-bred mogul revealed plans to drop a new project called Off the Grid Vol. 1, although its scheduled September 2021 release date came and went.
Check out Jozzy’s EP Songs For Women, Free Game For N-ggas below:
Gene Deal made as hell
RIP BAD BOY
Gay Ass Diddy shitting out his mouth as usual
Diddy, Teddy Riley and Dr. Dre have the main responsibility for mixing hip-hop with this bs. For real why didn’t they mix it with grunge or black metal that were also on the rise in the early 90s? Why did they have to dress up Marvin Gay copycats to baggy jeans and baseball caps? Because they sampled a lot from classic rnb? Well, hip-hop has a lot of inspiration and samples from Kraftwerk, so they could have embraced eletro. Because they are black? If it’s a reason for anybody, that’s pretty racist. RnB must be vanished from hip-hop. It’s the poison for the culture. Or at least – for that little part that remained from it.
a stud giving men “free game’. hilarious. smh
That’s how most black women look without the mix and swirling. So stop.
It never died, it’s just evolving. Diddy unsurprisingly is just disconnected from the culture of modern R&B/Soul like the out of touch goof we know he is… many great projects & artists out there right now.
What ever diddy is smoking he needs to stop it bruh r&b is deader than vanilla ices career r&b hasn’t been poppin since the early 2000s nobody is singing about a damn thing these new artists all sound the same everyone got a identity crisis singers wanna rap appears wanna sing when. Back in the day when r&b and hip
Hop
Was at its peak in its pureious form when you had real r&b artists like Mary j. Blige faith evans the force mds big bub new edition guy men of vizon ideal dru hill Jodeci and list goes on when you knew who was who and what was what when you had have talent you had to stand out from
Everyone else you had to bring something to the table wasn’t no YouTube wasn’t no social media you had to grind you had to pay dues and you damn sure couldn’t bite off another artist that’s why old school is never dieing and always gonna be timeless