Mario has certainly had a successful career. But has the singer done enough to stake his claim on a spot on R&B’s Mt. Rushmore? He certainly thinks so.
The “Let Me Love You” hitmaker recently caught up with TMZ, where he revealed who he’d place on the coveted list, beginning with the Queen B.
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“Beyoncé, Michael Jackson, me,” he began. “You know why I say that? Hold on. I grew up listening to so many different types of music — my mother and my grandmother — so I got like two generations of soul music, just great R&B.”
He went on to explain that he’d round out the list with Whitney Houston. But he wasn’t done yet. He added Usher to the list, explaining that his Mount Rushmore of R&B would have more than four people.
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The Baltimore native also issued sound advice for up-and-coming artists looking to have a long-lasting impact on the culture.
“I think what can help with R&B culture is getting back to raw music. Really taking your time to create timeless music, instead of just hits,” he said. “Get back to artist development. Back to just creating music that can stand the test of time.”
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Meanwhile, when asked whether he deems the culture — both Hip Hop and R&B — to be in dire need of help, Mario suggested that “as a culture we need to get back to making meaningful music.”
“Not music just to make money, but music that makes people feel something, feel good, feel inspired,” he added.
“If you go back to any classic album…something about that album inspires you. Music is meant to inspire people. It’s meant to be the soundtrack of our culture. Twenty years from now [if] people want to understand our world based off of the music we listening to today, what would they be getting? That’s what I ask myself.”
Prior to jetting off, Mario gave big ups to Usher for landing the coveted Super Bowl Halftime Show, and to Chris Brown, who he called a “young GOAT.”
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This certainly isn’t the first time Mario has made a claim to the R&B throne. In 2020, shortly after Jacquees made the brow-raising claim that he was the “King of R&B,” Mario responded that if we’re simply speaking about ability, he’s your guy.
“If we really talking about just straight, pure skill…” Mario began, during an interview with WGCI Chicago on Instagram Live. “We not talking about relevance, we not talking about who puts out 100 songs a year – we talking about, ‘N-gga give me a mic, you get a mic.’ If we just talking about that, there’s nobody fucking with me. I promise you. On everything, I put that on my grave.”
