They Have The Range: How this Philly music aficionado is filling a gap for Black-owned music programming
Branford Jones' skills for finding and curating powerful vocals has earned more than 712,000 followers on Instagram.
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Branford Jones was the kid who’d devour music shows from his childhood home in Willow Grove.
Compared to today, the music programming on television of the 2000s almost feels like a dream more than a memory. Instead of regular marathons of Ridiculousness reruns, MTV had a mix of shows that actually highlighted, well, music.
“Growing up watching TRL, growing up watching 106th and Park, or watching VH1 Storytellers, watching, you know, the music programming that we all love,” Jones remembered, “and then seeing it disappear.”
The son of a mom who plays piano and a dad who plays guitar and bass, Jones explained that TRL and 106th and Park was one ingredient to a strong musical upbringing. Jones, whose parents named him after Branford Marsalis, learned to play piano and clarinet as a youngin. He also sang in choirs at church and performed musical theater at school. Jones, a cousin of Patty Jackson’s with deep Philly roots, points to the city as part of that upbringing, too: “We have given so much to the world, musically.”
Jones, a 2013 Temple grad, understood that while the programming may have faded away after the 2000s, the talent was still there. Enter They Have The Range, a platform where Jones spotlights vocalists who really impress on social media.
From TikTok duets to award-show performances, Jones culls the internet for the singers whose voices will make you raise a hand to the heavens, purse your lips in satisfaction, or raise your eyebrows in joyful awe. His curated clips and challenges — where Jones might post a melodic passage or vocal run that’s harder than Candy Crush, then welcome attempts from the masses — have earned him 712,000 followers on Instagram.
Jones, who is based in Philly, launched They Have The Range in 2016, he explained. “During that time was the ‘R&B is dead’ [comments], ‘They don’t want to see Black music from Black singers,’” Jones recalled. “And in my mind, I was like, ‘Nope! I don’t think that’s true. I think you just don’t know where to go to support them. And you don’t have the visibility to see them, there’s no one pushing them to you.’”
They Have The Range counts about 9,000 members in its Clubhouse club, which hosts conversations on music and the culture. (Jones had a hand in supporting the Clubhouse production of Dreamgirls, when he connected its producer to both singer/actress Amber Riley and Sheryl Lee Ralph, the legendary actress who originated the role of Deena in Dreamgirls in 1981.) He’s working to fill a gap for Black-owned, Black-run music programming that, he said, is developing from media makers such as himself and YouTuber Terrell Grice, but has largely been absent from major networks.
“I grew up on Soul Train,” he said. “You know how important Soul Train was when it came for artists to be able to perform their music and be seen. So, I just see myself as the new age or new generation Soul Train without the dancing.”
Jones spoke to The Inquirer about They Have The Range and state of R&B music. This interview has been edited and condensed for length.
Hearing Soul Train, it’s making me think that the challenges that you have on your page as a participatory element, almost like a Soul Train line. Could you talk about the challenges? What is it like engaging with people in that way, to have so many people responding, putting their own swag on run after run?
So the challenges — that was actually due to corona. I had done a challenge a long time ago, for Writing’s on the Wall. And I was like, ‘Oh, when I get to 500,000 [followers], I’m going to do more challenges,’ and I just never did it. So I was doing walk-throughs at different venues in Philly because I was going to start trying to do some live shows. And then the pandemic hit and was like, ‘No.’ So I was like, ‘OK, well, what am I going to do? Everyone’s gonna be home. So what am I going to do to engage people?’
So I said, ‘You know what, I’m going to do a challenge.’ And the first one that I did was called the key change challenge. Because if you know, people know me, they know that the things that I love from what I post. I love key changes. I love bridges. I love songs that are longer than three minutes and I love rasp.
Those videos just kind of popped off and I never looked back. It just gave me a chance to honor the songs in the type of singing that I love. And remind people of how incredibly hard the songs are to sing and how incredibly great these songs are. And to show that people still can sing like this. And also to show that people still want to hear singing like this.
There have been a lot of people complaining about the state of R&B and these complaints have been going on for years, like at least 20 years, if not before. How are you feeling about not just the complaints, but how do you feel about the state of R&B where it is now?
I feel like it’s resurging. I think we’re finally kind of getting back to what we grew up on, especially in early 2000s and ‘90s. Where I feel like a lot of the music that we grew up on was at its highest, like its purest form. And I think right now, it’s a really good time for R&B, but it’s also a time for people to really invest in developing singers and writing songs that require a good deal of difficulty. Like, it’s not going to be easy, right? So, I think it’s about finding talent and developing them and really being dedicated to writing quality music and finding people that can actually sing and can move people. And I think right now, we’re starting to see that.
If you asked me a couple years ago, I’d have been like: ‘Mmmm, it’s getting there.’ I think Black women are doing a great job of R&B, but I’m ready to see Black men really become more vulnerable in their music and sing about things, especially love, again.
Where do you think R&B is headed?
Honestly, I think it’s heading back to the charts. You know, being able to chart again. I mean, even you know, recently seeing what Muni Long has been able to do with her song “Hrs and Hrs.” And how that’s impacting, and how it debuted on Billboard at 83. It may not be super high, but you know, we got to start somewhere. (Note: After the interview, the song jumped 49 spots in its second week, to 34 on the Hot 100.) I think R&B is getting back to that place where it can be a chart-topper.
I’m fine with all these mid-tempos. Sure, if you want to do the trap kind of R&B, that’s awesome. But I think there needs to be a balance of up-tempo R&B. I always say this: I say the next R&B guy to make their version of this generation’s “Yeah!” by Usher is going to be the next superstar. The next R&B girl that makes Gen Z’s “Get Me Bodied” is going to be the next like R&B woman superstar. And until we get our up-tempos you know, I feel like it’s going to be kind of stagnant. But once we get mid-tempos, and the ballads, and up-tempo records again, where you know R&B singers are making people dance, then I think, you know, we’ll be back in like perfect harmony.