Usher has responded to Diddy‘s claim that “R&B is dead,” saying that the rapper’s comments make him “sound nuts”.

Last week (August 17), Diddy took to Instagram Live for a conversation with Timbaland, on which he posted the question: “Who killed R&B?”

In an impassioned speech, he said: “R&B is muthafuckin’ dead as of right now. The R&B I made my babies to? R&B gotta be judged to a certain thing — it’s the feeling though, doggy. No, no, no. It’s a feeling. You gotta be able to sing for R&B and then you gotta tell the truth. R&B is not a hustle. This shit is about feeling your vulnerability.

“You gotta muthafuckin make a n-gga dick hard or a woman’s vagina wet,” he added. “You gotta cry. You gotta be able to get your girl back. I don’t wanna hear all this bullshit […] It’s our fault for accepting anything less for anybody getting on a mic. I feel like there was a death of R&B singing, and I’m a part of bringing that shit back! I ain’t feelin’ no emotions.”

In a new conversation on SiriusXM show Bevelations, Usher defended the cultural importance of R&B in 2022, saying: “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. You know, especially knowing he was a pioneer in understanding and beneficiary of it.

Usher added: “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.”

Another to defend R&B was Mary J. Blige, who appeared on Diddy’s livestream and commented: “You can’t kill something that’s in our DNA. It’s gonna keep transitioning from generation to generation to generation to generation. They was trying to kill it. Before I say what I’m gonna say, let me just say this: I wanna thank all the radio stations around the country that are playing R&B music and sincerely support it.”