There’s a lot to be said about hipsters’ “suspicious” newfound love for R&B. One aspect that concerns me is the implicitly racist conceit that suggests that R&B only becomes compelling when it takes on an indie-rock aesthetic (a form clearly dominated by whites, though not exclusively). That is to say, for some, contemporary R&B becomes worthy of attention only when it sounds self-consciously artsy, experimental, inwardly focused (“looking for myself”), psychedelic, or trippy, often drained of mirth. Given R&B’s long, rich, and diverse stylistic history, this “progressive R&B” supposition is in many ways a racial perversion of the form itself.