R. Kelly

Here’s another obvious one: the slick sophistication, every note drenched in sex, the glassy falsetto — the Weeknd owes that all to R. Kelly. It’s dirty yet romantic. It’s love, then it’s “she pops that pussy on a Monday.” How is this juxtaposition so good? It’s a deliberate homage to the man the Weeknd calls a musical genius, probably the “most prolific artist of the generation before mine.”

In the same Complex interview he said, “Some of the lines [R. Kelly] says, if you say them in a normal voice, it’s the most disgusting thing you could say to somebody. But I can say “Pussy-ass nigga” in the most elegant and sexiest way ever, and it’s accepted. If I can get away with singing that, I’m doing something right.”