First of all, this change isn't just affecting the R&B charts. It's also affecting the Country and Latin charts as well. Second of all, I'm tired of hearing people dismiss black people as being unwilling to support artists and buy music, as justification for why R&B is struggling and black acts selling out to Pop. In the 90s, when acts like BBD, Jodeci, Mary J. Bluge, Aaliyah, Brandy, Monica, Biggie, Pac, 112, Dru Hill, Ginuwine, etc., etc. were all going multi-platinum, who do you think were the main people driving the sales of their music? Whites? I don't think so. To say that Black people don't buy music is short sighted and prejudiced.

The fact of the matter is that in order for artists to sell millions, record labels and radio station programmers have to be willing to PROMOTE them on a MASS LEVEL to spread the word. Exposure leads to high sales, not stan loyalty.

R&B artists aren't given decent promotion budget and airplay NOT because black people don't buy music, but because the suits have decided that they'll make more money if they spend all of their resources promoting white pop acts instead. They're not giving black artists and black audiences a chance to even compete on the same playing field. And they're basically doing the same thing to hard rock acts too. When was the last time a hard rock/heavy metal act had a top 20 hit. I'm not talking about those quirky, nerdy, alternative, emo-pop/rock acts like Gotye and Owl City...but unsmiling, alpha rock acts that go hard and actually THRASH? Record labels are playing favorites with dance/pop, electropop, bubble gum pop, alternative pop and country-pop acts. Basically, if you're not in some way "pop"-sounding, then you're fucked.

Third of all, where are these white people who are supposedly buying albums? Album sales are down across the board. The average pop and rock artists album sales are peaking at 800k to 1.7 million...which means that white people aren't really buying albums either. What they do is buy singles. And why do they buy these singles? Because, again, the labels are showering the songs with 5x more promotion than they do black songs released by black artists. If the biggest mainstream stations in the country are playing a song every hour or the hour, chances are that song will zoom into the top 20 in single sales, based on its exposure. If the station Ryan Seacreast works for was playing "Put It Down" every hour, Brandy would be in the top 10 on the Hot 100 right now. But they're not. And it ain't because of sales. If a song, artist or genre of music is being snubbed at a corporate level, then fans can't really do shit to prevent them from flopping.

Why do fans of Brandy, Monica, Keyshia Cole, etc. have to go out of their way to keep up with their happenings, while fans of Katy Perry and Taylor Swift are given constant reminders by their machines? I hate Katy Perry and Taylor Swift, and try to go out of my way to NOT hear them...and yet I still do...but I have to try and search for that new Brandy song? Fuck outta here.

Don't sit up there and tell me that I don't buy music. My iPod and CD collection begs to differ. The playing field is not even.