‘Artists would kill to have a WAP’: how R&B music – from Cardi B, Chris Brown, and even Beyoncé – is more explicit than ever before
- R&B has always been full of sensuality and hidden sexual meanings, but in the 21st century, song lyrics have become much more explicit
- Industry experts and R&B stars say it’s down to a mix of social media, the genre’s closer links to hip hop, and the competitiveness of the music scene
Tank was nervous after sending his manager a preview of “When We” – he’d never released a song that explicit. “He’s like, ‘You’re crazy, but it’s jammin’!’” the R&B singer recalls. “It ended up being my biggest record ever.”
Released in 2017, the seductive chorus of “when we [expletive]” was obviously too explicit for radio, so a “clean” version used the phrase “when we touch”.
Despite releasing his first album in 2001 and crafting hits like “Maybe I Deserve” and “Please Don’t Go”, “When We” has been Tank’s most successful, finishing at No 1 on Billboard’s 2018 year-end adult R&B airplay chart.
“I didn’t reinvent anything vocally – a little R&B here and there, tapped into my rap cadence, tapped into my Migos [style],” Tank, now 47, says. “I was competitive.”
Being competitive – and collaborative – with hip-hop is one of the reasons today’s R&B is more explicit.
Last year’s Luminate Year-End report found that R&B/hip-hop is America’s most popular genre, accounting for the most US on-demand song streams and the largest share of total album consumption.
