Usher Raymond (right) crowned himself the King of R&B after his former mentor Sean “Puffy” Combs (left) declared R&B “dead.”
“I do deserve that,” Usher told Bevy Smith on SiriusXM and Radio Andy’s “Bevelations.”
“King, whatever you wanna call it. Yeah, I’ve been working to the point where I do own that, and I do deserve that.”
The eight-time Grammy Award winner added, “And I ain’t gonna ask for it no more. You’re gonna give it. Because I did work for it.”
Combs made the controversial statement during an Instagram Live, telling music producer Timbaland that “R&B is muthaf–kin’ dead as of right now.”
After Usher signed to LaFace Records as a teenager, Combs took the boy singer under his wing.
Usher is one of the R&B crooners insulted by his former mentor’s statement.
“When I do hear people, even like Puff saying, ‘You know R&B is dead.’ He sounds nuts to me. It sounds, it sounds, it sounds crazy,” said Usher.
“You know, especially knowing he was a pioneer in understanding and beneficiary of it. You know, the source that is R&B created the breath of life that was breathed into hip-hop. It wouldn’t be. There would be no hip-hop if there were not R&B, so it’s blasphemous to hear me say, to hear people say anything, especially hip-hop cats, to say anything about R&B.”
Usher added: “That’s what R&B is. R&B is timeless, it ain’t gonna go away.”
