Opinion How technology killed the talent in urban music

Technological changes in the last decade made it so that you could fit your entire music collection, thousands of songs, into a contraption the size of a credit card. But beyond the boom of MP3 players, iTunes and the Internet, pop music itself changed dramatically, especially the sounds that fall under the urban umbrella-ella-ella. (Sorry. Got carried away.)

The "neo-soul" movement, which for a brief moment brought a lyrical and musical depth back to urban-pop at the close of the '90s, gave way to a colder, heavily digitalized sound in the last decade. Most of it was concocted on a laptop. Once upon a time, arrangements cushioned voices in urban music. Sure, the beat was always important, but the voice often drove it. read More