It’s impossible to lend an ear to today’s crop of R&B divas without hearing just a little bit of Teena Marie. 

Though she never had the blockbuster commercial success or universal household appeal of some of her peers (Patti Labelle, Anita Baker and Whitney Houston quickly come to mind), Marie -- who died Sunday at age 54 -- left a perhaps more important, and lasting, contribution to R&B than record sales: She made the genre colorless.

Venturing through the self-proclaimed Ivory Queen of Soul’s back catalog, it’s easy to see how everyone from Mary J. Blige to  Faith Evans to Alicia Keys got some of their groove. However, Marie’s career was forever highlighted by the fact that she was a white woman singing historically black music -- something that doesn’t even remotely warrant a second guess in today’s landscape of artists of every race tackling any genre and gaining success.

But Marie was always different. Though she never catapulted into the more bankable pop world, she broke ground. 

Most of what's being said about Keri Hilson's new album, "No Boys Allowed," has had little to do with the music on the songwriter's sophomore disc. 

After the 28-year-old debuted the steamy video for the album's third single, "The Way You Love Me," the blogosphere blew up with folks criticizing the lyrics -- none of which are suitable for printing here. 

But the Grammy-nominated singer, who has also scribed hits for Mary J. Blige, Ciara, Britney Spears and the Pussycat Dolls, doesn't want fans to think she's all about offering a peepshow -- she's ushering in her own brand of girl power, like it or not.

Pop & Hiss caught up with Hilson to talk about the controversial clip, empowering women and whether or not she cares what anyone thinks about her (spoiler alert: she doesn't one bit).

What’s behind the concept of “No Boys Allowed”?

It's co-executive-produced again by Polow [Da Don] and Timbaland and features Nelly, Chris Brown, Rick Ross, J. Cole, Kanye -- all men, not boys. What else can I say about it? I feel that a lot of people are confusing the title, “No Boys Allowed,” to mean that I’m alienating my guy or male fans, and it's not about that. It’s more so about empowering women and making us feel strong and take ownership and control of our lives, our relationships, our bodies. It’s my way of saying girl power. 

On the eve of the release of her fourth album, Ciara stood attentive, watching her choreographer run through moves for a planned performance of her single “Gimmie Dat.” It was well after midnight when the songstress arrived at a rehearsal studio in Burbank. She’d just flown in from filming promotional appearances in New York, and without time to shake off any jet lag, she joined in with the army of dancers awaiting  her. 

Though in later conversation, the 25-year-old was steadfast in her optimism, there is a lot riding on “Basic Instinct.” 

Her offering on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” -- for which she was prepping -- and later in the week, “Lopez Tonight,” would be the first time fans saw televised performances for the album that hit stores the same day of her planned Ellen spot –- and they were already buzzing about the seeming lack of promotion. 

And after a revolving door of release dates and a slew of poorly received leaked tracks –- paired with the underwhelming reception of the albums’ predecessor, “Fantasy Ride,” excitement, and patience,  seemed to be waivering among her fans on popular urban music blogs.

“Even though ‘Fantasy Ride’ didn’t sell as much records as all my other albums, you have to recognize the time that we’re in. We’re in a time where records don’t perform as strong as they used to,” she said after wrapping “Lopez Tonight” a few nights later. “However, I’m very proud of that album … but creatively, I wanted to go back and throw my sneakers back on. The inspiration was really about taking it back to basics, to where I first started.  I wanted to make sure my core, core fans got to connect with me. But it doesn’t mean [‘Fantasy Ride’] was wrong, or it wasn’t good.”

When El DeBarge walked onstage late last month at Gibson Amphitheatre, he was met with a fury of applause and catcalls from the predominantly female audience. He basked in the moment, his gray and scarlet suit aglow in the spotlight before the band launched into a classic song from his back catalog, “Stay With Me,” and he let out his signature falsetto. 

Watching the crowd embrace the elder statesman of R&B -- who was opening for Mary J. Blige on her “Music Saved My Life” tour -- was a testament to the power of public redemption. It had been more than 16 years since he had an album in stores and on paper his career was long over, thanks to a long self-destructive path of drug use.

The 49-year-old, once the lead singer of the popular '80s Motown family group DeBarge, transitioned that early success into a thriving solo career. But it became an afterthought when his addiction -– which he battled for more than two decades and which has also plagued a number of his siblings -- and a laundry lists of legal troubles, including arrests on cocaine possession and domestic violence charges, crippled his once promising career.

His dependence on heroin and crack ultimately landed the singer in prison, where he spent 13 months before his release in 2009. But to those in the audience that evening, none of that mattered as they swayed and sang along to his old hits. Some women blew him kisses (which he returned); others fanned themselves and some professed their love for him, including one nearby woman shouting, “He still got it” -- he was, after all, considered a heartthrob when these women were in their late teens.

Kenny Edmonds is adamant that had there been no Richard "Dick" Griffey, there wouldn't have been much of a black music scene in the '80s.

Griffey, the founder of the Los Angeles-based R&B record label Solar, died at the age of 71 of complications from quadruple-bypass heart surgery that he underwent last year (read more about Griffey’s life in The Times' obituary).

From 1977 when Griffey founded the label, which stands for Sounds of Los Angeles Records, through its peak in the 1980s, the label quickly earned its moniker, “the Motown of the '80s,” for its stable of artists. Acts like the Whispers, Shalamar (featuring Jody Watley and Howard Hewett), Klymaxx, Midnight Star and the Deele (featuring Antonio "L.A." Reid and Edmonds) all have Griffey’s imprint on them. His hits are inescapable, with classics including “Fantastic Voyage,” “And the Beat Goes On,” “Rock Steady” and “Tender Lover.”

The string of success led to Griffey being pegged "the most promising new black music executive," which The Times reported in 1980.

The R&B, funk and soul jams his acts crafted laid the foundation for the early-1990s G-funk West Coast flavor of Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre and Warren G, among others. Edmonds said it was all part of Griffey’s genius.

“He had a great ear. He was a genius in many ways in terms of what he built, creating the label at the time that he did it. The sound he created,” Edmonds said. “From the Whispers to Midnight Star, to Dynasty to Shalamar, he created music with a force behind it.”

Before he became Babyface, Edmonds was just a background player in the Deele, struggling to get noticed as a songwriter, and he credited Griffey with bringing him to the forefront -– this after being voted down to sing lead on a song he wrote.

Griffey said, " 'Well, how come he isn’t singing it?' It was a political problem. They had a meeting on it and they voted me on not singing. He said, 'That’s some ... . He’s singing the song,' " Edmonds said. "He was responsible for getting my voice on the record. ... He said,  'If they don’t want you to sing all the time, you should be doing your own thing.' That’s how I ended up recording my own album."

For all his achievements, Griffey was a hard businessman, Edmonds said, and, even moreso, a “complicated” man.

“He was a black man to the depths, he was a black activist. He believed in black businesses and black people standing on their own two feet, to the point where he could scare you sometimes. Some people thought he was harsh, and he could be,” Edmonds said. “There were those that liked him and those that didn’t want to deal with him. Ultimately, I think that overrode the things he accomplished.”

But regardless of how stringent he may have been, Griffey's contribution outweighs how his peers regard him –- even if his former artists and Griffey’s family have to do the reminding. "His legacy isn’t as known because they don’t know the guy behind it all. I think he got frustrated with the music business, and it wasn’t as important to him,” Edmonds said. “At some point, when it relates to your legacy, you have to fight to remember. And at some point, I don’t think he cared anymore. But I, for one, wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t sing the praises for the talent he was.”

-- Gerrick D. Kennedy

twitter.com/gerrickkennedy

Photo: Dick Griffey in 1973. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Bangladesh has his sights set on “changing the game.” And he plans on doing this with a few unexpected muses.

Recently named one of six top urban producers at this year's BMI Urban Music Awards, the Atlanta-based beatmaker, whose birth name is Shondrae Crawford, has been slowly rising to prominence over the last decade by being the sonic mastermind behind songs from such artists as Ludacris, Ciara, Kelis, Missy Elliott, Usher, R. Kelly and Beyoncé -– he was responsible for the latter's most recent singles, “Diva” and “Video Phone.”

Crawford recently produced songs for Ne-Yo, Nelly and the Game -- and even a handful of beats for the new "Def Jam Rapstar" video game -– but it’s the upcoming work for a few divas that has him most excited: He is prepping to tackle projects from Beyoncé, Ke$ha and Brandy.

The producer was brought on board to work on Ke$ha’s follow-up album to “Animal” after meeting songwriter-producer Dr. Luke through a mutual friend. He said Luke, who’s penned hits for Kelly Clarkson, Pink, Britney Spears and his protégé Ke$ha, doesn’t want him to compromise his urban flair for the pop world.

Monica is beaming onstage.

Although the R&B singer is dressed head to toe in black, she's wearing an ear-to-ear smile as she sings the title track to her sixth album, “Still Standing,” a gospel-tinged testimonial of survival and resilience, during a recent two-night, sold-out stint at downtown Los Angeles’ Club Nokia.

Despite the heavy lyrics in this particular song, there is great reason for the 29-year-old to be smiling these days, given the past year she's had.

With a slew of personal and professional setbacks behind her -- she witnessed an ex-boyfriend commit suicide, another ex-lover is in jail after being found guilty of murder and her last album was considered a commercial failure –- she's returned to music after more than four years away.