Simping vs Tricking

I was going to get into this for the last rant but this topic deserves a little more fleshing out and we were on the brink of an election. I’m not one to distract from the bigger issues hand. You know, being socially responsible and shit. Well the election is over and I don’t want to talk about. I’m actively avoiding all election related news until it’s all sorted out.

Cool?

Cool.

This entire post was inspired by a tweet I saw when I was in FB jail and forced to stroll around the Twitter streets. It read something to the effect of…

“It’s crazy how a dude with give you 3 stacks to throw in the strip club but will only give you 300 to start your business”

I didn’t see anything wrong with that. It made perfect sense but the tweet went low key viral; making it crystal clear to me that people didn't didn’t understand the difference between tricking and simping. Well as your favorite internet personality to hate that’s actually the same in real life I’m here to clear it all up for you. Let’s get into these definitions…

Simping – foolishly over catering via financial and/or physical aid to the emotions, wants and needs of a person in hopes of building and/or continuing romantic interest.

Tricking – financial aid in the forms of gifts, trips and cash payouts EXCLUSIVELY for the purpose of gain sex and control.

Quick side note - Tricks and simps are almost exclusively men. Sure there's a handful of chicks that will handover their tax refund for their little dope boy boyfriend to get back in the game slanging 3.5's for 20. There's also a couple women floating keeping her dude in Jordan's and Hugo Boss outfits that not bringing shit to the table but dick.

From a wide scope tricking might feel a lot like simping. It’s not though. A simp will love you or at least be deeply infatuated with you even to his own personal detriment. A trick would never. Nobody is going to rack up the L’s via acts of service and funds spent for a person that doesn’t want them back like a simp. Whew child, the absolute ghetto. Simps will be your best friend and confidant. They listen to your gripes about the job, your kids, your next door neighbor and even your current romantic interest over dinner and drinks and still play the bill at the end of the night. Simps will leave work early to pick your son up from football practice. They’ll cancel weekend plans to help you move into your new apartment and make those trips to Ikea with you. Simps are fully invested in your overall welfare because they are invested in you and the idea of being with you in hopes that you see the value they add to your life. The downside they tend to be wild fucking annoying and clingy. Simps almost never just be cooling on some hit my line if you need some help shit. Nah. They will purposely attempt to interject themselves in every aspect of your life and lead the league in "without me" statements I.E. you posted pics from brunch last Sunday that "you went to brunch without me" text is coming.

Now tricking on the other hand is way more carefree. You know how they say it ain’t tricking if you got it? Well it’s still very much tricking but to be a trick or at least a mildly successful trick you need to have a nice amount of disposable income on hand at all times (yes, in excess of $40). I feel like these next statements are common sense but being that common sense isn’t that common anymore, I guess I have to say it. Tricks typically stay in their weight class, tax bracket or whatever the kids are calling it these days. If he's working for Metro he'll hold off on trying to capture the attention of the IG girls with 100k+ plus followers and aim towards the chick working the Tuesday day shift at the local strip club. Finding girls that’s been on your timeline recruiting people to flip 20 into 160 are his niche. Mainly because anyone willing to ruin personal relationships over 160 will probably go ape shit over a shopping spree at Tanger Outlets. But the art of tricking is a bit more fine-tuned than that because it’s also about control. A trick will never give you the tools to be self-sustaining. No. No. No buddy. That is bad for business and extremely counterproductive. You know the saying where you give a man a fish and he eats for the day but you teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime? Yeah tricking is the exact opposite of that. They are handing out fish only and never fishing lessons or fishing rods. Yeah that top notch yellow fin Ahi tuna going for $60 a pound all day everyday over the $40 fishing rod on clearance at dicks sporting goods. If you want to go to Tulum your trick can make that happen. When the social media was going back and forth of Birkin bags your trick will, at the very least, fly you in with LV Speedy 35 bag. You want to get certified for lashes and micro-blading? Oh no a true trick will have no parts of that. That my dear falls under empowerment and that is not a tricks lane. The true downside of tricking is it tends to be short lived. Tricks are always in high demand and they are almost always in the market for something new. A trick will drop some bands on you, have his fun and fall back like a screen door in a windstorm.

A trick will easily drop 10k in gifts and shit for 25k worth of head but a simp will drop 5k in hopes of having you.

Tricks make your life a little more luxurious

Simps make your life better

Jean DeGrate has spoken

Tricks are ruining the Dating Game for Women

I’m not anti-trick. I’m not pro-trick either. I don’t trick but I’m indifferent to the practice all together. I understand it. I often spend money to shorten the distance between point A and B. If I want a buzz now I’m not going to drink 5 $3 happy hour beers; nah I’m just going to get a double shot of Black Label with a splash of ginger ale for $22. I’m also not going use an hour of my precious time washing my car when it’s a team of folks 5 minutes away that will wash my car in 15 minutes for $20. So I fully understand spending the money I have readily accessible to cover ground faster. With that said I’ve been paying attention to the changes in the game for my own personal research.

 

Maybe before I jump to far out of the window I should define “trick” and the act of “tricking”.

 

Trick – a person that uses financial means to gain romantic attention from possible love interests.

 

Tricking – the act of buying affection via monetary means and unpaid labor (putting together Idea furniture and shit).

 

I’m glad I got that out of the way. Aren’t you? Of course you are.

 

There are two levels of tricks…

Rich dudes; that fall under that ever so cliché labeling of “It ain’t tricking if you got it” so the money they spend isn’t a guaranteed showing of effort and interest. A guy that’s sitting on million plus can afford to buy a few pairs of Louboutin’s and not even notice it.

Regular dudes; guys that lead with their wallets to circumvent genuine sexually chemistry and affection at greater risk of financial setbacks.

 

Then it’s two categories

 

Short term tricks that just want to see what that mouth do once or twice or maybe three times. Might keep her around for a season while showering her in gifts and money but when it’s done it’s on to the next one.

 

Long term tricks are the golden ticket. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. They turn into boyfriends, husbands and sugar daddies that buy purses just because and cars with red ribbons on it for birthdays.

 

Ladies dream of the long term tricks. The men with those supposed old world values in today’s landscape of equality because it’s a man’s job to take care of his woman and family. The “my woman never needs to spend a dime as long as I’m in her life” guys that pay all bills and buy gifts, flowers and candy like every day is Valentine’s day. To be perfectly honest I want a love like that. Love me enough to pay for my everything while I pocket all my earnings. Who wouldn’t want that? That’s why the homie drinking that 24oz can beer standing in somebody’s living room preaching about paying all the bills is going super viral.

 

Now here comes the plight of being a woman in search of a trick or used to being tricked on

 

These long term tricks are few and far between and the rich long term tricks are even rarer, like an albino crocodile. Why do you think leasing luxury cars is the wave right now? That Benz is only going to be hot for 3 years after that it’s going to be something way hotter out. If you have the means why the fuck would you keep driving that old thing? Even when you look at the women (who don’t have definable careers) that have a history of dating ballers they tend date men of lower social rankings as they move thru the industry. Amber Rose went from Kanye to Alexander "AE" Edwards? Trick culture is always to be upgrading and always keep the baddest bitch.

 

It takes a while for a woman to restore to factory settings

 

Women love to take the good and set that as the new bar meanwhile side stepping the bad. Quick story… I used to date this young lady and by date I mean I used to invite her over to sit Indian style on my living room floor while eating chicken wings with mumbo sauce and watching bootleg movies. It was the original Netflix and Chill but whole time it was a vibe. We laughed. We fucked. We had a blast. It was a guaranteed good time right up until some dude took her on a first date to Cancun. Yeah, fucking Cancun. On some baller shit. On some “what you doing this weekend” shit. On some “you got a passport” shit. On some “you trying to shoot to Mexico right quick” shit. She went and had the time of her life. Came home on cloud 9 with a good tan. It’s nothing like 4 days and 3 nights in 90 degree weather on somebody’s beach in the middle of November. That whole situation with homie lasted about 3 weeks. Of course he captured the pussy a handful of times and went about his balling ass business. With homie long gone it still took her 2 years to come back to eating chicken wings with mumbo sauce on the living room floor again. See here’s the thing a woman could be a Ruby Tuesday’s dinner, a MK bag wearer and the moment some dude buys her a Gucci bag and dinner at Ruth Chris she’s instantly a Ruth Chris woman. She instantly knows her worth and her worth is now Gucci and all new suitors need to meet her there. Now the next 5 dudes will be held to the unrealistic standard set by the trick before them. They’ll be broke boys and phck boys until her default settings kick back in. The downside about that is it might take a year and 2 new dicks or it might take 6 years but during that time the dudes that might be her speed are moving on with life.

 

Just imagine holding out for your prince charming and he never pulls up

Jean DeGrate has spoken

Having a Girlfriend is a Lot Like Having a Kid

If you didn't know; I own a child, an 11 year old girl to be exact. If you were wonder, yes, she’s an asshole like me because the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree but that doesn’t have anything to do with this blog. Anyway it's a show that I watch on The CW and last year towards the season finale Madi made it explicitly clear that I was no longer allowed to watch the program without her. Cool. I dig it, plus I love it when our interest in programming aligns because it often does not. I'll watch scripted programming via network or streaming apps and she'll be watching some other other shit on YouTube. The new season of The 100 started and I have the new episode queued up and ready to go but the seed is no longer with the shits. I fire it up and she smoothly walks out of the room. WTF. "Hey, this is The 100." She never responds. I walk out into the livingroom to double down and before I open my mouth she says "I don't remember what happened last season, I don't want to watch it." Blown. Luckily this isn't spoiler TV because I don't think anyone watches this shit but I could have seen this episode 3 days ago if I wasn't holding out for her.

I talk to a few of my homies that are in relationships and they do the whole hold out to watch shit. I know a guy right now that's been off of social for a whole month trying to avoid Game of Thrones spoilers because his girlfriend hasn't finished season 7 yet and he has to wait for her. Do you know how hard it is to avoid Game of Thrones spoilers? It's bigger than social media that shit is everywhere. It's literally watercooler talk now. This got me to thinking about how many things that my child and the ladies in my life have run me thru. It's low key a lot but I'm just going to touch on a few.

Being forced to do shit I don't enjoy

Much like having a child; having a girlfriend means being dragged to events and pretending like you’re enjoying yourself. Concerts with artist you couldn’t give a fuck about. Dinner parties with people you can’t stand. Sip and paint parties; I mean who doesn’t love painting something fit for hanging on the side of a dumpster while drinking $6 a bottle merlot at $8 a glass? Men suffer thru it though. Trying new nasty food at expensive restaurants. But we smile and push thru it because a big part of her happiness is acting like you’re with the shits.

 

Holding trash ass conversations

Unfortunately it’s widely frowned upon to tell your children shut the fuck up when they embark on a topic you have little to no interest in. This is also true when it comes girlfriends. So you ended up in a bunch off illogical vent based conversation replying “Wow, that’s crazy” repeatedly. Having to hear about her little friends and their problems is a whole ass headache. Having to hear about your co-workers is a whole ass headache. Just this week alone I couldn’t imagine having the Ayesha Curry conversation because I know what she said and what she means but having to defend all every hetero penis owners would be crazy. Just in case women didn’t know; Ayesha said what she said but what men heard is “I’m lightskin and nobody wants me but my millionaire all-star 3 time NBA champion husband that's madly in love with me because I’m an ungrateful slut shaming basic bitch.”

 

Paying for every outing

I know when I hit the streets with the seed I’m picking up the tab. Madi isn’t even going to look up from her Nintendo Switch when the waiter brings the bill out. You know who else doesn’t look up vagina owners. You know all the outings that I was talking about previously that I knowingly won’t enjoy? Yeah it’s a 97.9% chance I’m paying for that. So when I’m pulling up to this new chocolate and wine infused tapas restaurant that just opened up but it’s all the rave on IG; I already know that’s on me no matter how much of a train wreck this meal will be. Kids are like a broke best friend but girlfriends are typically in a better tax bracket but they aren’t reaching for that wallet and that's just the cost of doing business.

 

Yeah I could shoot off a few more but maybe I’ll drop a part 2 eventually

Jean DeGrate has spoken

Dating SHOULD be selfish

I felt like I’ve said this before or something to this effect. I ran through my old blogs for about 6 minutes and I didn’t find it. Granted, I have about 300 blogs and 6 minutes isn’t long enough to look for anything, but I quit all the same. Whatever I wrote, if I did ever write it, was probably dated and filled with typos.
 
Anyway...
 
Let’s get into it.
 
I think we date wrong and when I say "we" I mean ya’ll.
 
I think we don’t have fun (or at least as much fun as we should be having) with dating because we’re doing it wrong.
 
So like the title says, I think dating should be selfish but before we get into the selfish shit we should do an honest assessment of ourselves. Looking for potential people to date should be like buying a car. You’ll have to sacrifice some of the things you like and what’s based on where you’re at in life. If you want a Benz, you have to be able to support a Benz and the issues and maintenance that come along with it. You might really need a Toyota with low up keep and you can pretty much just put gas in it and drive. This car analogy applies more to the fellas and the lesbians that look like Mannie Fresh.

Now for the ladies, you have to know your worth and not that “I dated 5 lames so I deserve a guy in the NBA” bullshyt. I know women hate competition but it’s competition out there and it’s INTENSE. Trust and believe you’re not one of a kind and your kids are only a gift to you and it doesn’t matter how much you make because you aren’t paying for dinner on this date. So reel in your dreams of dating Idris Elba and come on down to Earth. I don’t think I need to do a step-by-step procedural write-up for any of you grown folks right? Right. But just in case you’re confused just remember these few hints:
A.            Exceptions to the rule exist but you’re most likely not it chief.
B.            Whoever you think you should be dating shave 3 points off of that unless you’re rich.
C.            Ask yourself “would you date you” and answer honestly and why.

 
Now on to the selfish shit:
 
Once you have your REASONABLE criteria together it’s time to put your wants and needs first.
 
You got it together?
 
Good.
 
Let’s move on.
 
Compromise is for relationships.

Let me retool that statement. Real compromise is for REAL relationships. I know some of you people take shit extra literally and hop back on my line saying “well you said” shit. Basically don’t cut the new boo out just because they prefer drums over flats or they’ve never seen an episode of ‘Game of Thrones’. Now if you don’t want to date a man with kids then you totally shouldn’t date a man with kids. If you don’t want to date a man under 6 feet then don’t entertain a dude that’s 5’11. If you want to date one of these flat tummy tea body type women then keep that energy the whole way. Maybe you're about that 3some life but this new person is not with the shits then you have to walk on by. The only time you need to change your dating criteria is when your dating criteria is no longer working for you and/or your preferences have changed. The worse thing in dating is settling for something you didn’t really want then when it doesn’t panned out you feel like you wasted your time. In actuality, you played yourself. If you go out for chicken and come back with a hamburger but you don’t like the hamburger that’s all on you. (Side note - telling somebody that you don’t typically date someone like them is never a compliment no matter how dope you think you are.)
 
Don’t be afraid to let that shit go at the first sign of smoke.
I, and I’m pretty you have as well, have had some pretty amazing first dates. The chemistry was hitting on all cylinders. The vibe just felt like home and the person you barely knew seemed so in tune with you that it felt like you’ve known them all your life. One of the best dates I ever had started off all wrong. I picked her up and drove about 45 minutes away to Jillian’s (a Dave and Buster’s type of establishment but with a more adult theme). When I got to the door I realized I left my ID and the security wasn’t trying to take this $20 bribe. By the time I made it back home and grabbed my wallet Jillian’s was closing in an hour. We were both hungry and the only sit down eating place still open was IHOP. I don’t remember what we ate. We were both 100% sober. We had hours of dope conversation and made fun of people passing by, ‘Til this day that was longest amount of time I’ve ever spent in an eating establishment that didn’t have a game on. It was wonderful. Then she called my 26 times the next day in the span of 4 hours. The first 3 calls I was still sleep. The 4th call I took under the belief that it might be something pressing. It wasn’t. She just wanted to talk. I didn’t because I was still very much tired and told her I would hit her up later. Then 45 minutes later she was back to calling me. I answer the 2nd call. She asked me if I was up yet upon me saying “hello” and that she missed me. I knew in that moment that would be the last time I would ever heard her voice. I knew something that I didn’t know 12 hours prior… she was needy and it wasn’t a way around that. This was a drastic example but there are all types of things that pop up during dating that are cause to cut ties. People tend not to lead with worst traits so you have to witness it yourself and then hit that first exit ramp.
 
Don’t give love a chance.
I’m not a romantic but there are very few love stories that start out of mediocrity. If you and the person you’re dating are getting along just fine; everything  is just ok, then chances are you’re at the peak of it all. I'm saying don't wait for love because love is not coming complacency is. You settle into good enough and talk yourself into to believing your in love. The magic isn’t just going to pop up and that’s ok because that's how dating goes. Remember “good enough” almost never turns into “great” unless they have that bag. 

 
Put yourself first; your love life isn’t a charity.
Jean DeGrate has spoken

Women having male friends doesn’t stop or encourage cheating

I’m like 407% sure I’ve written on this before. I could probably find the blog but it’s most likely riddled with typos and not worth rewording. So I’m not even going to look.

 
The other day the homie Charmel posted a question of the day asking men is it a turn off if a woman has a lot of male friends. Some of the dudes felt some sort of way about a woman having a lot of male friends because men are men and shit. That is very true; men are men and shit. See men, especially male friends, make men insecure because men know a thing or two about men. They are often waiting for their moment to do some man shit. They probably ended up in the friend zone after failing to do some man shit. Oh and by man shit I mean attempting to capture the vagina because men tend to have keen razor sharp focus when it comes to that certain objective. Funny thing is a man doing man shit has nothing to do with a woman because it’s ultimately up to the woman. We’re going to put a pin in this for right now. I’m going to swing back around though.
 
Hi.
I’m Jean DeGrate and I have a lot of female friends. And yes I know I’m not just an ordinary dude and I’m not on some typically man shit as before mentioned. But listen though… Having a plethora of female friends vs the amount of those ladies that threw the box at me is a sad comparison. I might have a grand total of 8 women that hit me with the “Why did nothing ever happen between us line” and I’m pretty sure that was exclusively out of need to stroke their own egos. I might have 3 women that have straight up offered me the cheeks in my 43 years on earth. I’m a pretty decent dude and let’s just say my platonic female friends for the most part have remained platonic female friends. None of them ever tried to violate any of my relationships, if anything they were on some congratulations shit for those moments in time I wasn’t single.
 
Ok one more time
 
Hi.
I’m Jean DeGrate and I have slept with a lot of girlfriends and wives. And yes I know I’m not just an ordinary dude and yes I was off some typically man shit. But listen though…None of those girlfriends and wives were my friends. Not a single one of them. Come to think of it a lot of my friendships with women ended when they started a new relationship because men aren’t comfortable with women having male friends. Tangie is one of maybe 3 female friends that our friendship survived a boyfriend. So much so that her boyfriend turned husband is my Facebook friend and if I call her phone right now with him in ear shot he’ll say “what’s up”. True story. Now back to all that infidelity I’ve participated in… I’ve met these women out in the streets and via social media but I didn’t have to press too hard, if at all, to get this cheating on and popping. Why you ask? They was already about that cheating life.
 
Owning a vagina is nothing like owning a penis. Women have always have a dick in the glass to break in case of emergency and that dick is called “old work” because it’s be tried, tested and true. This includes ugly women, handicapped women, nuns, dom lesbians and  whatever other women you can think of. Women don’t need to cook up all these elaborate ways to hide dick in plain sight under the guise of friendship. This isn’t like vagina where ground work needs to be laid, wining and dining needs to take place or payments need to be received. Nope dick is free and readily accessible. So swinging back around to my original starting point… Yes men will continue to be men and do man like shit but none of that matters if your girl isn’t open to it and it doesn’t matter if it’s a friend, a guy she met in Miami on a girls trip or her switch hitter from way back when that’s been sitting on the bench since before she even knew you. In regards to women; we men give them far less credit than is actually due because when it comes to the sex women have us beat hands down in the will power department. Where us, on the flipside can get aroused by a stiff wind and are ready to risk it all after the 3rd beer. Never forget that Kobe Bryant almost went to jail because he had unprotected anal sex with a random hotel employee in Colorado who had semen of several other men in her panties.
 
In closing if she’s going to cheat she’s going to cheat
Jean DeGrate has spoken

These Fuck Boys Be Acting Up and You Women Be Letting Them

2018 was a banner year for the poster child of the fuck boy movement. If you’re wondering whom I’m speaking of, well that person is none other than Nayvadius DeMun Wilburn better known as Future. I cannot think of a single song Future released in 2018 but I do have a top 3 phck boy moments from him though. “You gonna cry in this Phantom or that Nissan?” is number one if you were wondering. I found it so amusing. It was so entertaining that I forgot he actually made music. Ironically, in the same vein that was so tickled with his antics I’d be absolutely appalled if a woman I knew was treated this way.

 
Before ya’ll jump down this Future has money BS let me kill that shit right now. Money isn’t even the motivating factor because it’s plenty girls choosing to cry in a 2009 Challenger with 155k miles on it instead of the 2018 Maxima they signed the lease on last year. It’s still a lot of women out here playing Yvette to a Jody from Baby Boy that’s getting dropped off at the train station every morning so he can ride around in her Honda Accord all day, smoking reggie pretending it's loud.
 
The unmitigated gall of these fuck boys is amazing. Like who gave these guys the idea that they could even move like this? Oh yeah that’s right it’s you women. For every Offset there is a Cardi signing off on this shit and for every Jody there’s an Yvette.
 
And since we’re here; there is no better place to start than cheating.
 
It’s commonly known that men are way less forgiving when it comes to infidelity. I want to say it’s pointed out every single day how unwilling men are to deal with the cheating issues that women deal with on a regular basis. Almost as if it’s a double standard when it comes to cheating; which is ridiculous. How can we imply that there is some sort of rule or principle that is unfairly applied in different ways to men versus women? In order for that to be a valid claim there need to be sort of system in place that allows more lead way for men than for women in the exact same situation right? Unfortunately this is no such system. It’s just women letting shyt slide on a purely case by case basis. Where most men if placed in the same situation would just walk away. Like how many women are successfully bringing home side babies? You have the Virgin Mary and maybe like 10 other women in the history of mankind.
 
Maybe that’s too big of a mountain to climb right now because you have to get in the door before you get to cheating.
 
Yeah, let’s get into some of the smaller scale fuck boy antics you women entertain on a regular basis that leads to the eventual fuck shit.
 
We’re 3 days into the New Year and this is prime time for a “hey stranger” text message under the guise of season greetings. That happy new year text that starts off so innocently that rolls into casual small talk often ends with “so when you going to let me taste you”. Of course since I have a plethora female friends I get screen shotted these types of text threads by the dozens. It was a time in my life that I needed a backstory. I needed to know how we got here. Now I get the backstory for shits and giggles; the history doesn’t even matter because 99% of the time he already displayed fuck boy tendencies but they continued to entertain him.
 
And that’s how fuck boys get a running start
 
Women stay letting shit slide and fuck boys are habitual line steppers.
 
Before anything even gets deep the fuck boys are going to test the water to see what they can get away with. As soon as fuck boy does something out of pocket a woman needs to dead that situation. And by "dead" I mean block and delete. Don't see the error in his ways and try to make this a teachable moment. Nope. Just block and delete but women don't often move with that type of energy. These dudes get 3 strikes before even getting a good date under their belt. Instead of telling these dudes to get fuck on women are hoping on social making memes about the bills they have to pay in response to a “WYD” text. Women are complaining about their time being wasted like they can’t hit the eject button at any time. Women always trying to figure out exactly where the fuck boy got them fucked up at and more times than not it's in the very fucking beginning.
 
See the thing is this before these fuck boys can pull off these amazing Future like fuck antics they have to start with baby steps. They slowly nudge women into the mindset that has them subjectable to the full range of fuck boys shenanigans. They've been training all their romantic lives to accomplish fuck shit.

Yeah y'all been with the shits; aiding and abetting the fuck boy movement
Jean DeGrate has spoken 

The King of R&B (and no, it’s not R. Kelly)

The R&B king of this generation is most likely Chris Brown even though the idea of setting the mood to Chris Breezy’s “Take You Down” makes me cringe. I’m also 57 years old so it is what it is. Being old really taints your view of shit and sometimes I do want to yell at the top of my lungs “You kids don’t know shit about music” whilst shaking my fist angrily as I blast some Luther Vandross. I’m not going to do that but that’s how I fell sometimes. Anyway the whole Jacquees king of R&B debate wrapped itself up with pretty much with nobody including Jacquees’ mom consenting to the idea that he was ever in the running for the crown.

 
And I wish the debate would have ended there but it didn’t.
 
Nope.
 
We couldn’t leave good enough alone.
 
We had to get Robert Kelly into the conversation.
 
For the sake of debate let’s just pretend like R. Kelly wasn’t a sexual deviant and focus exclusively on the music. Cool? Cool. The good people over here at the accountant firm of DeGrate, DeGrate and DeGrate have crunched the numbers, ran the stats and R. Kelly is not or has he ever been the undisputed king of R&B. Despite what your aunties would like you to believe he has never worn the crown but he was definitely in the neighborhood for a good 8-9 year run; so I can understand your confusion. So you’re probably wondering who the real R&B king is? It’s Usher. Let me tell you how.
 
R Kelly only predates Usher by 1 year. R. Kelly and Public Announcement’s “Born Into the 90's” dropped in 1992 and Usher came out in 1993 at the age of 14 with "Call Me a Mack" off of the Poetic Justice soundtrack. I’m not going to hold you “Born Into the 90's” charted and out sold Usher’s debut album “Usher” that only went gold. The the 90’s goes to because he dropped 3 back to back to back multiplatinum bangers (it almost makes you forget that he was married to 15 year old Aaliyah at the time, almost). The only 4 people that had a better 90’s run than R. Kelly are Madonna, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston and the motherfucking GOAT Mariah Carey. So if this was a king of the 90’s debate it would definitely be R. Kelly hands down. Usher didn’t even make any real waves until he dropped “My Way” in 1997 and killed the game. You couldn’t escape "You Make Me Wanna..." which went double platinum on it’s own.

Let's fast forward to 2001.

Usher didn’t put the game in the chokehold until 8701 dropped in and went 4 times platinum then he followed up with Confessions that sold 12 million in 2004. You know who sold more albums than Usher in 2004? Nobody. Usher moved more units of Confessions than R. Kelly did with Untitled, Double Up, TP.3 Reloaded and Happy People/U Saved Me combined. Kells dropped 6 solo projects in addition to 2 joint ventures with Jay-Z and still failed to have a better 2000 – 2009 run than Usher Raymond who sold over 20 million records all by himself.
 
Let’s keep it a buck both artist have lost a step in the new decade but Usher vs R. Kelly post 2010 isn’t even a fair fight. Usher has killed it on several seasons of NBC’s The Voice. He owns 3% of Tidal. He’s a co-owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers and still managing to go platinum unlike Robert Kelly. The last R. Kelly hit is a song he stole from Bow Wow; "I'm a Flirt (Remix)" and that was in 2007. Once we add the Trap in the closest series to this and when he was running around wearing a mask calling himself the Pied Piper of R&B I don’t even understand how this was even a debate. Can R. Kelly sing? Absolutely. Is he the king of R&B? No fucking way.
 
I could stop here and I should stop here but let’s be honest with ourselves if it wasn’t for Usher we’d have to give it to Luther. Even though Luther was singing to Freddie Jackson his catalog is untouchable and timeless. I mean who doesn’t love Luther?
 
Don't you remember you told me you loved me baby?
Jean DeGrate has spoken