It is no secret that 23-year old soul songstress Jazmine Sullivan has a short fuse. On her latest track, “10 Seconds,” the Grammy-nominated singer gave her cheating man a 10-second warning before she started “throwing and breaking s**t”—but who would have guessed that the same deadline applied to the budding singer’s mainstream career. After announcing her hiatus from music earlier this week—only three years in—fans were left wondering why Sullivan had opted for only 15 minutes of fame. After plenty of head scratching we began to think that maybe Sullivan’s short fuse with the music industry was justified because of its unwillingness to embrace Neo-Soul artists such as her.
Here are the top 10 reasons why we are losing our “Jazmine Sullivans”:
1. The Culture: Auto-tunes-heavy, pop-inspired R&B tracks are “what’s in” right now—leaving little room for the acoustic guitar totting soul crooner.
2. The Lyrics: We have all gotten our hearts broken at some point, but these days their aren’t many listeners who want to heal the pain through a soul-felt R&B track. Listeners would rather tell their ex-lovers to go “to the left” with catchy, upbeat lyrics.
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3. The Competition: New and old artists alike are all trying to stay current, leaving little room in the evolving R&B genre for the R&B /Soul singer who takes a more traditional approach to their music.
4. The Consumer: Ever since T-Pain asked “Can I Buy You A Drink,” it seems as though it is mandatory for listeners to be able to dance and/or drink to a track in order for it to be popular. If a listener can’t drop it or pop bottles to an artists music—it may not get played.
5. The Video: With a fun, flashy image comes an equally as fun and flashy music video. Most often, soul singers keep the theatrics at a minimum in their music videos and focus more on the music—honorable, but not marketable.
6. The Sound: The quality of an artists sound is no longer judged by their vocal abilities—if the beat is a winner, most often, so is the song.
7. The Genre: The question of whether “Hip-Hop is Dead?” has been answered and re-answered millions of times. Now music lovers are wondering whether “R&B is Dead?” The fact that this question is even being asked speaks volumes about the endangered genre and the artists within it.
8. The Media: The media is always fishing for a story. If an artist doesn’t have a scandalous story attached to them and isn’t likely to produce one—the media isn’t interested. Quality artists often get lost in the hype.
9. The Fashion: Fashion and music go hand and hand these days. Artists like Rihanna and Kanye West have shifted the focus of many music lovers—now rather than listening to the music they are looking at the artists for the latest fashion trends.
10. The Look: Unfortunately, we’ve never heard the saying “sound sells,” but we have heard the saying “sex sells.” And that statement becomes more and more real when we compare popular artists to not-so-popular artists. If you don’t have “the look”—perfect body, hair, and make-up—there aren’t many people who are willing to listen. Talent or no talent.
Which of your favorite singers doesn’t get the shine she should be getting?
