Key Takeaways
- Kenny Lattimore says the industry labeled his 1997 hit “For You” R&B because he’s Black, telling Shawn Stockman’s On That Note podcast, “There was nothing R&B about ‘For You.’”
- Stockman argued that a non-Black artist could have turned the song into a mainstream pop smash, citing the wider chart success of Céline Dion’s “If You Asked Me To” over Patti LaBelle’s original.
- “For You,” which Lattimore’s friend Kenny Lerum wrote for his wife, reached No. 33 on the Billboard Hot 100, topped the Adult R&B chart for 17 weeks and earned Lattimore a Grammy nomination.
Kenny Lattimore believes his biggest hit was labeled R&B for one reason: He's Black.
During an appearance on Boyz II Men singer Shawn Stockman's On That Note podcast, released Oct. 21, the Grammy-nominated singer challenged the music industry's longstanding practice of categorizing Black artists by race rather than sound, arguing that his 1997 wedding staple, "For You," never belonged exclusively to R&B.
"The music industry was racist, too," Lattimore said while reflecting on the 1990s. "There was nothing R&B about 'For You.'" He added that the only thing connecting the record to the genre was that a Black man was singing it.
Lattimore also recalled resisting the industry's attempts to associate him with neo-soul artists such as D'Angelo. "The category thing used to kill me," he explained.
Stockman later expanded on the conversation in an Instagram comment, arguing that "For You" could have become a mainstream pop smash if a non-Black artist had recorded it. "I like to call it the 'Pat Boone Effect,'" he wrote, describing how songs originally performed by Black artists were often confined to the "Urban" demographic while similar recordings by white performers received broader exposure.
He pointed to Patti LaBelle's original recording of "If You Asked Me To," which reached No. 79 on the Billboard Hot 100, compared with Céline Dion's version, which climbed to No. 4 and topped the Adult Contemporary chart.
The comparison underscores Lattimore's argument about how the industry marketed his music. Released in March 1997, "For You" reached No. 33 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 6 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. It also spent 17 weeks atop Billboard's Adult R&B chart, establishing a record eventually surpassed by Maxwell's "Fortunate" in 1999.
Despite Lattimore's objections to the genre classification, the song earned him a Grammy nomination for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance.
Ironically, Lattimore didn’t even write the song. His longtime friend Kenny Lerum, a Filipino songwriter he met in high school, originally composed "For You" for his wife, Ellen. Lattimore first performed it at Lerum's 1993 wedding reception before recording it for his self-titled debut album.
Recalling the lyrics, which emphasized fidelity, security, and commitment, Lattimore admitted he initially struggled to imagine how they would translate into a song. "I don't know how I'm gonna sing these," he remembered thinking before hearing the melody.
He described the finished recording as the "quintessential song" of his career.
Lattimore's comments also reflect the challenges he faced entering an industry dominated by a different brand of male R&B. While R. Kelly's "Bump N' Grind" represented one of the era's commercial successes, Lattimore's approach drew heavily from gospel, jazz, and classical music.
"Everybody did not embrace me," he acknowledged.
