In RJ Smiths James Brown bio "The One", he notes that Brown didn't dilute his sound for a white audience, he forced them to come to him. True, but how many James Browns are there?
Rap is rap and hip hop is hop, and they are both the children of James Brown, but soul, the songs of Motown, the brace of great singles that rushed the the 1960s and 1970s, that was not from James Brown. What Berry Gordy and his stable of artists and songwriters did was make soul music with the melodic intensity of country, jazz, Broadway tunes and the great American Songbook.
Though soul was black it was deeply informed by the white American experience and it crossed over because the melodies, if rooted somewhat in Gospel, was equal parts Berlin and Gershwin. It called itself the sound of young American, but it was bigger than that, it criss crossed generations and color lines.
But in the battle for supremacy, helped a lot by rap, soul lost to funk and r&b began and never ended using hip hop production techniques. If everything is on the beat, where is the actual song? In 20113, the songs are tepid by band and after band. I mean, really, is "Adorn" the best we can do? Now that I've calmed down a little, I'll admit that new r&b, Ocean and the Weeknd, Solange, they have their moments but they don't have enough of them and they don't peak nearly high enough.
I don't mean to be a jerk but… compare "I Second That Emotion" to "Thinkin' About You". It simply isn't the same at all, Ocean sounds like amateur hour. Smokey is light years, a billion years, ahead of modern r&b. It isn't a question as to whether todays R&B doesn't have the same soul, it doesn't have the same artistry. It isn't a matter of taste whether the lyric to Smokey is superior to Ocean: if you don't see it, you can't read. You certainly can't listen.
R&B isn't what it was because people aren't writing songs as well, because they are not attempting to include, instead they are closed up scene.