![]() She signed a deal prior to the spring 2015 release of her breakthrough mixtape, You Should Be Here, and long before it was nominated for a Grammy. She was courted by major labels, and recorded on one’s dime, before most fans knew who she was. Kehlani Parrish is a 21-year-old singer from Oakland, though she is no stranger to the mechanics of the industry. The dawn of 2017 is at least providing an antidote. But at the conclusion of last year, these sorts of artists had piled up in a big heap at the end of the assembly line, like Christmas toys ready to be furiously packaged and shipped out for mass consumption. In fairness, this blueprint has been successfully replicated before-Bryson Tiller, a Drake soundalike who doubles as an athleisure mannequin in his spare time, became the genre’s breakout star in 2015 despite performing songs that sounded like they might be trying to escape back into your speakers. Like the Weeknd, each artist (dvsn aside) underscores their constructed anonymity with a sound that is hazy and faded, with the conjuring of a certain atmosphere foregrounded at the expense of noticeably strong songwriting. The singers were introduced to the public in meticulous fashions, but the songs, in most cases, felt empty. In listening to these artists, it was easy to feel like the music itself had taken a backseat to the marketing plans. dvsn, for instance, dropped its debut album on Drake’s label just six months after putting out its first ever song, while H.E.R.’s debut was rolled out with context-free links on some famous artists’ Twitter accounts, its major label backing only apparent if you read the small print on iTunes, leaving fans and journalists scrambling to find out anything about the singer. The suddenness with which these artists materialized was an indication of the music industry’s desire to invest money in incubating a replica of the Weeknd. À la Tesfaye-who got his start independently but was quickly shepherded up the ladder by Drake-those artists paired their enigmatic allure with major superstar co-signs, such as Kendrick Lamar (H.E.R.), Ty Dolla $ign (24hrs), Kylie Jenner (6lack), and Drake again (dvsn). Many of the year’s most heavily bankrolled R&B singers-dvsn, 6lack, H.E.R., 24hrs-emerged with fully-formed aesthetics that leaned heavily on an air of mystery, not to mention distinct post-Weeknd spellings or punctuations of their names that cemented the normalization of what was once artsy virtue signaling. ![]() With his reign well established, last year felt like the culmination of Abel Tesfaye’s influence over the genre he was eventually able to transcend completely. You can trace this back to the rise of the Weeknd, who grew a sweet-sounding, disembodied coo into one of the most commanding and visible voices in pop. In 2016, R&B as an industry revealed itself to be deeply image obsessed.
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