Chloe Bailey has long established herself as a versatile talent.
However, with such artistic range comes the challenges of forced categorization.
Indeed, it’s well-documented the hurdles many acts – particularly acts of color – face when releasing music.
Bailey learned this anew recently when she released her Pop-kissed single ‘Boy Bye.’
And in a new interview with Nylon, ahead of her incoming album ‘Trouble in Paradise,’ she addresses the discourse.
Full story below…
Reacting to the calls for her to “go back to R&B” and her penchant for experimentation more broadly, Bailey candidly responded to the critique by saying:
“Any music I do will easily and quickly be categorized as R&B because I’m a Black woman,” Chlöe says, sounding unbothered. “If someone who didn’t have my skin tone made the same music, it would be in the pop categories. That’s just the way it’s always been in life.”
Expanding, she drew on the similarly-flavored backlash Whitney Houston faced in her early career:
“Early on in [Whitney’s] career, when she was doing the big Pop records, she got a lot of flak for that: being told she wasn’t Black enough and wasn’t catering to the base that made her. To see how she persevered and has become one of the most iconic, legendary artists that we’ve ever seen, shows that music has no race, it has no genre, it has none of that. It’s just a feeling and it’s a vibration. And that’s why I was really proud of Beyoncé doing Cowboy Carter, because Black people originated country music. It’s just showing that possibilities are endless.”
With that, what are…
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B it ch please… these Black artists need to stop playing race card. You are complaining because you are not successful. You are still a flop even you are doing Pop. I never seen Whitney or Janet were complaining they are not successful just because of their skin color. I can’t relate to these naive generation x
Does she even listen to pop music like Lady Gaga. And she doesn’t look like a pop star
I categorize it is BAD.
LMFAOOOOOOO Her music isnt bad just run of the mill in my humble opinion. THIS IS HILARIOUS
Oh girl please. They categorized you as that because thats what you do. They don’t put Tracey Chapman or Darius Rucker or Jason Derulo in the r&b category.
B**** because it is R&B. If she won’t shut her slow ass up
Boy Bye was a great and catchy record it’s weird her music isn’t being send to radio and her team trying to rely on Tik Tok…she’s always been experimental and they wanted her to go pop and now she’s giving that they want her to go back to R&B which they didn’t support. Her debut album was decent to me and I like her I hope she continues to beat to her own drum and stay winning.
Her team only does what she tells them to. The issue is not her team. The issue is her ability to sell solo records. When you have the ability to sell records the promotion budget pays for itself. I think she needs new management and willingness to follow the direction of that new management. Right now she seems stuck on her way and closed minded towards other ways of selling records and making music that sells
Genre is just marketing. Besides, all the songs I’ve heard from her have been at least R&B flavored and not pure ‘pop’. It’s her and her team’s own fault if she feels she’s been pigeon-holed.
Good message. Wrong messenger
She makes cute rnb music tho. What’s wrong with that. Good RnB music are good music. Periodt.
Gotta love the headline: staying unbothered.
She is ALWAYS bothered. Always complaining about not having hits or poor sales.
She is an entitled TWA+T
Stfu dumb f** you have NOTHING going on 😂😂😂😂
Every time I do your mom from behind, it sounds like someone walking in flip flops.
Her discography is full of 🚮
Even Normani has a better catalogue…
It’s garbage no matter what you call it.
Her music is the worst and fyi Chloe it IS r&B😐
R&B is not synonymous with boring at all, that’s why these artist keep sampling all the old R&B hits to score a hit. Who did Ariana Grande just partner with to make her white, homewrecking ass Relevant? Mariah Carey, Brandy and Monica, that’s who. Some of these black artist are mad they aren’t crossing over into mainstream like they hoped and it’s coming back to bite em in the ass for selling out.