The 20 Best R&B Radio Hits of 2020
When I did my big list of 2010s R&B singles earlier this year, I felt like I was partially telling the story of how Top 40 radio pushed R&B away about a decade ago and has kept it at arm's length ever since. And that situation didn't get much better in 2020 -- a nominal R&B act had one of the biggest albums of the year, but The Weeknd basically lives on pop radio now and barely got played on R&B radio this year ("Heartless" got to #18 and his Calvin Harris collaboration got to #31), while Ariana Grande made her most R&B album yet but is still firmly in Top 40 territory (don't even get me started on Justin Bieber saying Changes should have been nominated for Grammys in R&B categories). There was a lot of great stuff fully classified as R&B this year, but it feels like there's a pretty low ceiling for where it can wind up on the Hot 100, which is pretty frustrating to still be seeing in 2020. Here’s the Spotify playlist, and the 2020 rap radio hitslist.
#7 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #43 Hot 100
H.E.R. is obviously a great writer and singer, but I think what I find most interesting about her career is the way she’s managed to appeal to Grammy voters like a young Alicia Keys-type artist but she’s just rolling out new singles and EPs year round like a modern artist and just constantly staying in the mix on R&B radio and kind of hitting on a different sound with each single. And “Slide” quietly became her biggest radio hit by kind of merging her sultry quiet storm sound with a west coast rap beat in a way that worked way better than it seems like it should on paper.
#6 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #63 Hot 100
Like H.E.R., Chloe and Halle Bailey are young and talented and have navigated their career with a certain unhurried confidence. Being mentored by Beyonce probably gives you a justified feeling that you can just take your time on the path to inevitable world domination, though. And their first Hot 100 hit “Do It” was a solid step toward them being more than simply well known but famous, while still retaining a little of the ethereal chamber pop vibe of their earlier stuff.
#11 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
The year’s 2nd best “Do It” was also pretty great, both in its ballad from and in the Missy Elliott remix that surprisingly translated the song to a clubbier sound without dropping what made the original song work in the first place
#17 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
K Camp’s earlier run of mid-2010s hits excelled at romantic melodic hooks, but he was still rapping in the verses on songs like “Comfortable.” But after one of his full-on rap tracks, “Lottery,” brought him back to the charts thanks to a TikTok dance craze, K Camp pivoted to singing entire songs like Drake on this year’s Kiss Five, including this great slow jam with the controversially self-proclaimed king of R&B.
#3 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #66 Hot 100
Zapp’s “Computer Love” and Mtume’s “Juicy Fruit” have been two of the most sampled songs on R&B radio for decades, and it takes a certain ruthless hitmaking acumen to combine them on one song, but they do fit together pretty nicely. Here’s hoping Jeremih is on the road to recovery after COVID-19 put him in the ICU.
#9 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
Another “Computer Love” sample, but this one comes as kind of an unexpected beat switch over 3 minutes into the song, so it doesn’t feel as much like Usher is leaning on it for a hit.
#28 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
A real sleeper hit from the journeyman R&B singer named John Brown, who started shortening his first name to an initial to maybe seem a little less anonymous. This was really high on my most played songs on Spotify in 2020.
#24 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
Ella Mai and DJ Mustard were such a blockbuster combination on her self-titled debut that I’m a little surprised she went with a different producer for the lead single to her second album. But Ella Mai’s rich and clear voice over a murky muffled Boi-1da beat has a nice sound to it too.
#1 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #9 Hot 100
Another year, another insanely overplayed Chris Brown song. But at least “Go Crazy,” which has been #1 on R&B radio on and off since July and still going strong, has a good Young Thug verse and a pretty cool flip of the classic “Drag Rap” break.
#27 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
There haven’t been a lot of bands on R&B radio in the last couple decades (I'm trying to think of much of anything in recent years besides that one song by The Internet?). But the Brooklyn neo-soul quintet Phony Ppl made a very strong case that they deserve a place on radio playlists this year with a great single that got a boost from the year’s most ubiquitous rapper.
#8 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #29 Hot 100
This reminds me a little of “Hot Girl Summer” in that I get the sense that someone called Ty Dolla Sign and told him he had five minutes to make a social media catchphrase into a chorus. That said, it was cool that SZA finally got out of TDE artist jail and got to release something, and got Pharrell and Chad involved for a rare modern era Neptunes production.
#12 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
Usher’s singles for Confessions 2 have been a mixed bag, particularly the tracks that reunited him with the original 2004 album’s collaborators. “Sex Beat” with Lil Jon and Ludacris was a dud, but Jermaine Dupri delivered on “Don’t Waste My Time.”
#19 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #37 Hot 100
Despite being the most nominated song at the upcoming Grammys and one of the few Beyonce solo songs released in the 4 years since Lemonade, “Black Parade” had a pretty quiet reception on R&B radio. It really grew on me, though, love the horn arrangement.
#5 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #40 Hot 100
Another record that got a lot of recognition in the recent Grammy nominations was Jhene Aiko’s Chilombo, which surprised me a little since the album’s big single is a goofily titled sex jam about how proud (???) she is of Big Sean’s dick.
#32 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
Everything I’ve heard about Queen & Slim makes it sound like not a very good movie, but the soundtrack album was pretty solid, and spun off a couple of great singles in Megan Thee Stallion’s “Ride Or Die” and this collaboration between London singer Tiana Major9 and the Atlanta duo EarthGang.
#19 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
Gap Band frontman Charlie Wilson, 67, is probably the oldest artist regularly appearing on the R&B charts these days (if you don’t count Smokey Robinson, who’s on one of Wilson’s recent singles). And that’s probably because Uncle Charlie has a loyal fanbase of younger stars who are always eager to write and produce songs for him, including Bruno Mars, who penned “Forever Valentine” with lots of room for Wilson to oowee and shabbadabbadoopdootdwee.
#8 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
At 51, Kem just scored one of the biggest hits of his career. And I think the reason “Lie To Me” did so well for him was because he deployed his signature “hey girl” ad lib right at the top of the first verse.
Swedish soul singer Shahrzad Fooladi scored her first charting album in 2019, and her first two radio hits in 2020. They’re both pretty good, but I went with the one that doesn’t have a deeply unnecessary Pharrell verse on the single version.
#12 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
Chelsey “The Bonfyre” LaRue has one of the sillier monikers that have come into vogue since The Weeknd made R&B singers want to adopt band names, but I really like her music, particularly this Raphael Saadiq-produced single, despite it being a duet with the dullest most monotone vocalist in modern R&B.
#6 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #16 Hot 100
Summer Walker has been absolutely inescapable on R&B radio for the past two years, and she’s probably not going anywhere anytime soon, despite her increasingly weird social media antics. This song was much better before they made a version with Bryson Tiller, much like “Girls Need Love” was better off without the Drake feature.
1. PartyNextDoor f/ Rihanna - "Believe It"
2. Kehlani f/ Tory Lanez – “Can I”
3. Bryson Tiller f/ Drake – “Outta Time”
4. Teyana Taylor f/ Iman – “Wake Up Love”
5. K. Michelle – “The Rain”
6. Tank – “I Don’t Think You’re Ready”
7. Rotimi f/ Wale – “In My Bed”
8. Brandy f/ Chance The Rapper – “Baby Mama”
9. Usher, Lil Jon and Ludacris – “SexBeat”
10. Queen Naija – “Butterflies Pt. 2”
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