Remember This? Many R&B Superstars On Here! Today’s Music Needs This

Posted On : January 19, 2015

We stumbled across this video from back in the day and almost forgot how good this song actually was. For starters, it was produced by D’Angelo and had every male R&B artist from the early 90’s in it. This was a powerful message they were sending with this song- just as their collective name said, it was a message of unity that is severely lacking within today’s music.

The superstar group, Black Men United, included everyone from Brian McKnight to Gerald Levert, to El Debarge. There are a total of 25 artists in this video and we want to know how many of the 25 artists can you spot?

On a side note, I’ve gotta vent for a second because I originally wanted to include in this article, a list of of today’s male R&B artists I think should collaborate up and record a song like “U Will Know” for today’s generation. There was only one major problem though: We couldn’t even find 25 new male R&B artists!!! Know why? Because they don’t exist! At least not in today’s mainstream music industry. Sad I tell ya!’ This is further proof that today’s music in DESPERATE need of an overhaul because this is crazy and dangerous for our younger generation. All they’re getting is twerk music and lyrics about “stackin’ chips” (money) and buying clothes, jewelry, and cars, which a lot of them can’t afford since their record labels are intentionally keeping them in constant debt. Therefore the jewelry, clothes and cars most of them are flossin’ are rented and at the end of it all many of them will end broke and back to “hustlin'” like they say in their songs. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the kids shouldn’t have music with song topics that are a little more raunchier, but there needs to be a balance and right now there is none…labels aren’t really even pushing artists who are capable of creating a balance.

Remember how we had Rick James singing about puffin’ on some “Mary Jane” and we also had the Isley Brothers singing about hearing “Footsteps In The Dark”? We even had Public Enemy telling us to “Fight The Power” and we had N.W.A. rebelling against the police, but again, the point is that we had a BALANCE of the messages we were getting in music. So ILOSM family, I leave you with this question and excuse my “French,” but what in the hell happened?!!!

 

About I Love Old School Music

We salute the incredible people and beautiful memories of that "old school". We’re not saying that every artist and every facet of the soul era was perfect, but the artists’ contributions to soul music and the old school memories of that particular time are PRICELESS.