The "King of R&B" debate has been rumbling for a while. It was largely ignited by Jacquees, who was very vocal about his conviction that he was in fact the king. He dropped an album this week titled The King of R&B, which may have had the potential to be controversial a few months ago, but people are probably too tired of the argument to get up in arms about it anymore.
Tory Lanez expressed indifference towards the topic when he was asked to weigh in on it in a recent interview with Rap-Up. “I think everybody’s a king in their own right,” he said. “I think there’s this common misconception that somebody shouldn’t say something that’s too big. Are people supposed to limit themselves? Are you supposed to want to be number two?"
After giving this response, he was asked to give his opinion on who is the King of R&B. Rather than naming a single artist - which is hard to do across multiple generations - he listed a few. R. Kelly, Trey Songz, Chris Brown, Usher, Michael Jackson and himself. Tory made sure to make a disclaimer while praising the disgraced R. Kelly. “Despite the things that he’s done, I think music and craft-wise, I would give it to R. Kelly. He’s just been doing it for so long and he did so many different genres and did them phenomenally on the music side. I don’t agree with the things he did on the other side, but musically you gotta give it to guys like that.”
We'll get to see Tory Lanez' R&B chops on full display on Chixtape 5, which drops on November 15. Listen to the project's first single, "Jerry Sprunger (feat. T-Pain)", here.
