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Is she throwing shade or nah?
Dionne Warwick is NOT ready to give Beyoncé icon status yet. She sat down with Essence, and discussed today’s artists and whether the music that is being created in this era was timeless.
“I don’t know if 10 years from now, anybody can actually sing the songs of our babies today,” she said. “That’s not, as you guys say, ‘throwing shade.’ That’s just looking at it with reality. When you speak of folks who have been in the industry, recording for as long as I have, and my peers… These babies, who are approaching 20 years, maybe, which is amusing to me because I’m certain they wouldn’t even last that long. But since they have, when they get into the 50- and 60-year range, that’s when you can start saying, ‘Well, maybe there is a classic hidden somewhere amongst them.’ But at this very moment, I don’t see it.”
She was then asked about Beyoncé.
“I have an admiration for Beyoncé,” she said. “Watching her grow has been quite refreshing. It’s wonderful to see how she’s been able to create what and who she wanted to be and who she is.”
An icon she is not yet in her eyes yet.
“Now sustaining and become the icon [like] Gladys Knight, or Patti LaBelle, or Johnny Mathis, or Frank Sinatra, or Sammy Davis Jr.? I doubt that. I really do,” she said. “I love her to death and can appreciate her talent. But that iconic status that I just mentioned before? Those names? It’s a long road [ahead].”
She later tried to clear up her comments in a now deleted tweet.
“What I said is in quotes,” she wrote. “What @Essence said is not. It takes a long time to reach and achieve iconic status. That’s not to say that Beyoncé isn’t well on her way. She is a gifted performer. That was a reach from Essence.”
Watch the full comments below.