Joyce Wrice’s Overgrown resembles a fresh breath of air that we all needed to take in 2021. The Southern California singer’s debut album draws on the classic R&B of the late Nineties and early 2000s, showing the range that fans of the genre were accustomed to seeing from artists like …
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In the early 2000s, religious music experienced a moment of mainstream success. Mary Mary’s debut albumThankfulwent platinum, and for a time, contemporary gospel was a pop culture touchpoint. The crossover appeal was obvious. R&B’s ebullient production grafted seamlessly onto gospel’s enduring commitment to raw talent. Its vocal tropes remain a …
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When Tunji Balogun was young, a series of black superstars soared through mainstream pop music — Michael and Janet Jackson, Prince, Whitney Houston. “I remember growing up with tons of black faces on my screen,” he says. “But then something changed in the late 1990s, early 2000s: It just kind …
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For Jacquees, “king of R&B” is a mantra, a statement of purpose, and it bears repeating. He’s a confident man, and to have a conversation with him is to have many sentences end with the punctuating “I’m the king of R&B.” Discuss the growing controversy around his grandiose assertion, he …
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At a party celebrating the release of Teyana Taylor‘s VII album in 2014, Kanye West gave a short speech praising the R&B singer, who is signed to his G.O.O.D. Music label. “Teyana provides something that’s so R&B, so black, so ‘hood, so missing, so necessary in the marketplace,” West asserted. …
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Hours before Beyoncé and Jay-Z released their new album Everything Is Love on Saturday night, their camp was scrambling to complete the surprise LP. “People were still recording parts an hour and a half before the last show in London, three hours before the album was released,” says Andre Lyon, …
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