Usher has pushed back at Diddy’s declaration last week that R&B is dead.
“He sounds nuts to me,” the 43-year-old singer said. “It sounds crazy.”
Usher passionately defended the genre during an interview for Bevelations.
“When I hear people say stuff like, you know, ‘What happened to R&B? R&B is dead’ – it’s not. R&B is timeless, it ain’t gonna go away,” he said.
Usher described R&B as “the breath of life” for hip hop. "There would be no hip hop if there were not R&B, so it’s blasphemous to to hear people say anything – especially hip hop cats – to say anything about R&B.”
Diddy sparked debate last week when he tweeted: “Who killed R&B?”
In an Instagram Live, Diddy fumed: “R&B is motherf**king dead as of right now ... R&B is a feeling. You've got to be able to sing. You've got to tell the truth. R&B is not a hustle."
Diddy also lamented the over-use of Auto-Tune in R&B. "It took the confidence away from the singer," he said of the ubiquitous voice-correcting software. "If y'all out there and y'all got real talent, that's what really matters."
He challenged music producer Timbaland to name five R&B artists who can sing "somebody's face off" without Auto-Tune. When Timbaland struggled to come up with a list (he named Susan Carol and "these twins" whose names he forgot) Diddy interupted: “R&B don’t sound too alive. You don’t even know nobody’s name.”
Usher said the genre is “completely timeless” and he doesn’t want to hear otherwise.
“For those people who are living in the comments section: Keep that s**t there. Don’t let me hear you saying nothing crazy greasy about R&B because it ain’t never gonna die.”