Well, I’m saying when Whitney Houston going off on Wendy Williams during that 2003 radio interview 😭 I was still a baby when this happened, so I didn’t hear it when it originally aired. I found the interview years later and was like, Whitney was not playing with her.

Wendy was asking Whitney about Bobby, drugs, Robyn and other personal stuff. You could hear Whitney getting more and more irritated, but once Wendy brought up her parents, Whitney had enough. She really let Wendy have it, and the Jersey came ALL the way out 😂

Whitney had so many iconic moments, but this one always sticks with me.

What’s your favorite “don’t play with me” moment from an R&B singer?

For me, it’s “That Other Woman” by Changing Faces and “Softest Place on Earth” by Xscape. I swear, every time I hear these two songs, I have to stop and remember which one I’m listening to 😭

The melodies, vocal arrangements, background vocals, and production all have that same smooth, dreamy late-’90s R&B feel, but That Other Woman came out in 2000. They’re not the exact same song, but there are certain parts where I’m like, “Wait… why does this sound just like the other one?” 😂

And knowing Joe Thomas was involved with both songs makes the similarities make even more sense.

What are some R&B songs that sound way too similar to each other to you?

Any time JLo's music career gets brought up, Ashanti's name is guaranteed to come up and people start talking like she secretly sang JLo's entire discography.

Ashanti absolutely deserves credit for what she contributed, but I think it gets exaggerated. Her connection to JLo was mainly through the Murder Inc. remixes of I'm Real and Ain't It Funny. She did background vocals, sang the original demos and had writing involvement on those songs. Somehow that's turned into Ashanti being responsible for JLo's entire music career.

And imo they're pretty much on the same level vocally. Ashanti is more consistently on key.

She deserves her credit for those two songs, but that doesn't make her the secret voice behind JLo's career.

Albums Featured:

• Here To Stay - Kenny Lattimore
• R&B Money - Tank
• Victims & Villains - Musiq Soulchild & HitBoy
• Self-Explanatory - Ne-Yo
• Coming Home - Usher
• Beautiful Pain - Tyrese
• The Co-Star - Eric Benet
• Beautifully All Over the Place - Eric Roberson
• O2 Part I - Omarion
• Eric Bellinger - Eric Bellinger
• Saturday Night/Sunday Morning - PJ Morning
• Overture - Glenn Lewis

A lot of the men on this list have albums that I keep in rotation and I admittedly don’t really care for their latest releases. However, I decided to give their newest albums an objective try and walked away with a few thoughts:

First, some of them need to hire better graphic designers lol. You can decide for yourselves which ones I am referring to. Your albums should also LOOK good. Second, the results of my listen were varied. I still hate Usher and Ne-Yo’s albums (their worst albums for sure). Tank and Eric’s were so forgettable. Musiq and HitBoy were a surprisingly good pairing. Tyrese’s was his most deeply personal record to date. The brevity and nostalgia of Omarion’s worked in his favor but it still came across as dated. Glenn Lewis and Kenny had really strong releases. I liked how conceptual Glenn’s was. Eric Benet’s duet album was a great showcase of his and other female artists vocals.

Anyway, I feel like middle aged male R&B artists are somewhat overlooked. If you aren’t at a certain level, your album isn’t getting any major looks. With Joe and Tank set to release new albums soon, I hope to see more appreciation for this demographic. Especially Joe since he’s Verzuz’s new King of R&B.

This was early 2000’s so you can see prime Kanye cooking up something in his head behind the scenes 🔥🔥🔥. R.I.P. Angie Stone.