Overview of The manosphere is coming for R&B
This NPR It’s Been a Minute episode explores how red-pill and “manosphere” thinking is showing up in modern R&B, a genre historically centered on love, longing, heartbreak, and emotional vulnerability. Host Brittany Luse speaks with journalist Mankaprr Conteh about her interview with rising R&B artist Isaiah Haran and how his comments about women, relationships, and empathy reflect a broader cultural shift toward casual misogyny in music and online discourse.
What the conversation is about
R&B’s traditional role
- R&B has long been associated with:
- romance and yearning
- sensuality and heartbreak
- grand, emotionally rich production and lyrics
- The episode contrasts that legacy with newer R&B that often centers male disappointment, cynicism, and emotional detachment.
The Isaiah Haran interview
- Conteh wrote about Haran’s album Mr. Love Bomb and initially interpreted it as a nuanced portrayal of toxic relationship dynamics.
- In conversation, Haran made comments that shocked her, including:
- “What empathy for women could I have?”
- framing women as wanting too much while contributing too little
- Conteh argues that his language sounded like manosphere rhetoric: dismissive of women’s humanity and suspicious of women’s motives.
Key themes and arguments
“Vibes-based chauvinism”
- Conteh describes Haran’s stance as “vibes-based chauvinism”:
- misogyny that feels intuitive or culturally absorbed rather than explicitly ideological
- opinions shaped by online culture, gender resentment, and emotional reaction more than evidence
- She contrasts this with empirical research that shows women often face real harm in heterosexual relationships, while patriarchal norms also damage men.
Men’s pain vs. women’s harm
- The episode makes room for the idea that patriarchy hurts men too by:
- restricting emotional expression
- enforcing breadwinner and protector roles
- discouraging intimacy with other men
- But Conteh stresses that this cannot become an excuse to ignore women’s actual harm.
- Her point: men’s frustration is often redirected outward onto women, rather than toward the systems that created the pressure in the first place.
R&B, misogyny, and the broader music ecosystem
- The discussion links Haran to a wider trend in R&B and adjacent genres:
- The Weeknd
- Bryson Tiller
- Brent Faiyaz
- Chris Brown
- Usher
- The episode notes that many popular male R&B stars have built careers around flawed, toxic, or morally compromised personas.
- It also points out a tension:
- women are the core audience driving R&B’s success
- yet some of the music now seems increasingly shaped by male grievance and masculine posturing
Black women, Black men, and complicated loyalty
- Conteh emphasizes that Black women often feel a cultural pressure to empathize with Black men because both groups have been harmed by white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy.
- At the same time, she argues that this care can become misplaced when it excuses repeated abuse or misogyny.
- She also notes the complexity of Black men being both harmed by and sometimes shielded from accountability within broader social systems.
Broader cultural takeaway
What this says about American culture
- The episode frames R&B as a mirror of the wider culture:
- gender polarization
- online grievance politics
- dehumanization through capitalism and social media
- Conteh suggests that the manosphere succeeds because it taps into:
- real disenfranchisement
- perceived losses in status
- emotional insecurity
- But it often misidentifies the source of that frustration, turning men against women instead of against the systems actually producing precarity.
Bottom line
- The episode argues that misogyny in R&B is not just about individual artists—it reflects a broader cultural environment in which red-pill ideas have become normalized.
- Conteh’s main challenge is simple but pointed: who is actually disenfranchising men?
- Until that question is answered honestly, resentment will keep getting redirected into music, fandom, and everyday relationships.