Why is R&B music more explicit than ever? It’s complicated.


              Songs with an explicit/parental advisory label in the top 25, each year, on Billboard's Year-end Top R&B/Hip-Hop chart.
            
              FILE - R&B singer Tank appears at a screening of "Girls Trip" in New Orleans on June 30, 2017. After releasing his first album in 2001 and crafting heartbreak hits like “Maybe I Deserve” and “Please Don’t Go,” it was 2017’s sexually explicit “When We” that became his most successful hit. (Photo by Donald Traill/Invision/AP, File)
            
              This combination of photos show music artists, top row from left, Ashanti, Babyface, Chloe Bailey, Yung Bleu, Mary J. Blige, and Lucky Daye, bottom row from left, Robert Glasper, Muni Long, Rico Love, PJ Morton, T-Pain and Tank. (AP Photo)
Why is R&B music more explicit than ever? It’s complicated.