There’s been a lot of conversation concerning the current state of R&B. Diddy recently made a statement declaring that R&B is dead on Instagram. This sparked a debate. Many other artists and influencers disagreed. To refute Diddy’s claim, They brought up the recent heavy hitters of R&B including Summer Walker, H.E.R., Queen Naija, Ari Lennox, Jazmine Sullivan, etc. But in our opinion, there are also so many other talented artists that are currently slaying the genre.
People do know that music does exist outside of Radio Hits, right? Yeah, R&B isn’t the most popular mainstream genre at the moment but that doesn’t mean it’s dying. There will always be a ‘most listened to’ genre of the decade; meaning, most people will follow trends and choose to listen to the same thing repeatedly. But R&B is just as prevalent as it used to be. In fact, it has evolved with modern times.
In today’s times, there are also a lot more categories and new genres of music than there used to be. Diddy should know this. The real music lovers are consuming just as much R&B as they used to back in the day. So we decided to create a list of our current fav’ R&B artists of this time. Not all of these artists are mainstream but they definitely refute the claim of it being dead. Here are our top 50 underground R&B artists of the past few years.
Top 50 R&B Artists
(Not including the mainstream artists. And in no particular order)
- Lucky Daye
- Teyana Taylor
- Chloe x Halle
- Sevyn Streeter
- Daniel Caesar
- Tone Stith
- Snoh Alegra
- Cleo Sol
- SIR
- Eric Bellinger
- Vedo
- Asiahn
- Brent Faiyaz
- Ella Mai
- VanJess
- Ambré
- Jean Deaux
- Victoria Monét
- Xavier Omär
- Jvck James
- Tink
- Joyce Wrice
- Mereba
- Emmavie
- Moonchild
- Ogi
- Kenyon Dixon
- Arin Ray
- Sy Ari Dixon
- ELHAE
- Tiana Major9
- Mariah The Scientist
- Mario
- James Blake
- SAFE
- Nija
- Jacob Latimore
- Satya
- Jade Novah
- Sinead Harnett
- King Sis
- TeaMarr
- Riley Lanez
- Elaine
- Elle Varner
- Jon Vinyl
- Sebastian Mikael
- Alycia Bella
- Ann Marie
- Ayanis