With age and experience comes wisdom. Unfortunately, few "old school" crooners have survived in the contemporary music landscape and, unfortunately, the integrity of the R&B genre has been compromised. Many new artists feel that they have to stray from the more classic elements of R&B, so they can incorporate hip-hop elements. I'm glad to hear that Levert told you, "Do you." It's much-needed, and I wish more artists did the same. When I heard "Part the Waves," it was a breath of fresh air.
The courage and creativity is just gone. When I started doing interviews for this record, one of the first questions from the radio people was, "How many features do you have in your record?" I said, "I don't have features on there. I don't do features." They said, "Why not?" I had to educate them. I said there are two different things: collaboration and features. A feature is when a song is created for an artist and they say, "Who can we put on this record so we can get more radio airplay, so we can be more hip?" That's a feature. A collaboration is two artists saying, "Hey, let's get together, man, and do something."
Some artists today, they do a compilation record but you just give your name and your image and when you open it up, it's all features. That's a compilation; that's all it's been called through the years. So how can one say it's their album if they have a different artist on every record? My work is not made up with that because my records are inspired from real-life experience. If you can't make it hot all by yourself, then what are you doing it for? Collaboration, I think you should do it from time to time and it should be based on the fact that you have mutual respect for each other when you make a record together. But just to have a feature, I'm not into that. That's not me.
What's your opinion of the current R&B landscape?
I think there are artists that make contributions that basically inspire the evolution of music. Then there are others that are current. They write for today. The artists that write for tomorrow and the day after tomorrow are artists that contribute to the evolution of music.
Looking back, what do you consider to be your greatest contribution to R&B? Is there a particular contribution that you think will stand the test of time?
I'm just being true to who I am. I've stayed true to myself and I have always put out material that express what I'm feeling, how I'm feeling it, in my own unique way without following anybody else's lead or trend. Music is influential. It doesn't matter how much you write your own stuff. If you sit around listening to the radio, you're going to be influenced by what's on the radio. When I'm making a record, I isolate myself, just for the respect of being focused. I can then continue to contribute to the evolution of music.
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