9 Songs That Define R&B’s New Era

In my article on the renaissance of women in R&B, I write about a new generation of artists who are reshaping the genre, with some returning to the music’s gospel-based roots and others annexing fresh sonic territory — hybridizing with the latest hip-hop, grafting in global sounds and claiming R&B’s rightful stake in pop music today. That tells only part of the story, though, as many R&B artists resist the industry’s categorizations: While accepting the award for best country album at this year’s Grammys, Beyoncé, a 16-time winner as a solo artist in R&B categories, voiced an opinion shared by many Black artists: “I think sometimes ‘genre’ is a code word to keep us in our place.”

What unites today’s R&B with music of the past is its celebration of voice. Fans don’t talk only about who can sing but about who can sang — enlisting their physical gifts and knowledge of tradition in performances that reach past exhaustion. Below is a playlist of nine songs, all released since 2020, by women artists who are extending and redefining R&B’s rich tradition.

1. Muni Long’s “Make Me Forget” (2024)

“Sometimes people just need to leave stuff alone when it comes to classics,” Long told me in an interview, recalling her hesitancy when the producer Tricky Stewart presented her with the instrumental for “Make Me Forget,” a spare interpolation of D’Angelo’s “Untitled (How Does It Feel)” (2000). But writing her own song on top of one of the most seductive songs (and music videos) in R&B history presented a welcome challenge. The verses tease out the terms of a fledgling relationship, working with and against old-school gender roles (“Know when to walk away / When I’d rather that you stay / Gently put me in my place / Leave when I need some space”). In the chorus, Long pleads three straight times for her new love to make her forget — the pain of her past relationship? The man before him? — only for the final line to reveal that she’s asking for him to make her forget “anything before you that didn’t feel like this.”

2. Summer Walker’s “Session 33” (2021)

On 2018’s “Session 32,” Walker sings about the messy process of moving on from a failed relationship (“Threw away your love letters / I thought it’d make me feel better”). The recording has all the qualities of a home demo, down to the sequenced title and the absence of the mixing and mastering of the modern studio — a conscious choice to underscore the song’s raw emotions. “Session 33” is its natural extension, but with a difference. Still an acoustic affair, featuring Walker’s voice and guitar, the recording now offers some studio sweeteners that “Session 32” lacked: echoed vocal effects, harmonic overdubs and Walker’s cleanly miked voice. “Session 33” shares with its predecessor the sense that the artist is letting us in on her creative process — as well as on her romantic life. “Should I move on since no one’s here?” she asks herself. The song never answers.

3. Jazmine Sullivan’s “Pick Up Your Feelings” (2021)

With her 2021 concept album, “Heaux Tales,” Sullivan gave voice to herself and many other women working against the sexist conceit, sometimes perpetuated in R&B, that women are conquests and men are conquerors. On songs like “Put It Down,” “Lost One” and, most powerfully, “Pick Up Your Feelings,” she renovates the tired theme of the no-good man by centering her own — and other women’s — empowerment. The whole album is an exercise in validating female sexual desire while also acknowledging women’s equal capacity to do dirt, all while condemning the societal double standard that lets men do the same without tarnishing their reputations. But Sullivan’s not writing an essay; she’s engaged in a vocal workout session. And her peers have taken notice: “I’ve literally watched Jazmine Sullivan videos hundreds of times, slowed them down to 0.25 speed and mapped out the note transitions on sheets of paper that end up looking like infinite stairs,” says the artist Jessie Reyez. “Hearing her sing is like watching someone make a joke out of gravity.”