It was novel back on Jay-Z's The Blueprint to hear someone rap over a sample with vocals, staccato rhymes against a melodic wail, and there are some people that still find it a little distracting to hear two different vocalists overlap even when one of them acts as more of background texture. But rap songs with vocal samples under the verses have gone in and out of style a few times and feel particularly inescapable now. And the way Alabama rapper J.K. Mac flows over a Patti LaBelle sample on "No Love" reminds me of the way DJ Paul and Juicy J used to flip Willie Hutch samples, I love the southern rap soul beat aesthetic. Here's the 2023 singles Spotify playlist I update every month. 

Victoria Monet has written hits for Ariana Grande, Chloe x Halle, and others, but as a solo artist she's kind of been a cult sensation, releasing some great independent projects after an early major label deal didn't pan out. But now she's signed to RCA and it's exciting to see her get some real promo. The D.C. and Baltimore R&B stations I listen to have been playing "Smoke" a ton, I'm surprised it hasn't popped up on national charts yet, it's a great use of D'Mile's talent for evoking '70s funk without being cartoonishly retro like the Silk Sonic stuff. 

I love R&B with rich harmonies and really miss the days when the mainstream was full of successful vocal groups. And it kind of speaks volumes that the first new vocal group I've heard on R&B radio in ages probably only got this far because WanMor is comprised of the four songs of Boyz II Men's Wanya Morris. I first saw WanMor a few years ago competing on a Nickelodeon show called "America's Most Musical Family" and I really rolled my eyes at them singing Boyz II Men covers. But "Mine" is pretty fucking good, a lot of it is that the beat is just ridiculously cool and full of ear candy, but again, it's nice to hear some harmonies on the radio again. 

Jelly Roll's last album featured a hard rock radio #1, "Dead Man Walking," and a country radio #1, "Son of a Sinner," so I feel like he's at an interesting juncture where he can either thrive in both genres or becoming a staple of just one or the other. And the lead single from his upcoming album is being promoted to both formats, in classic country crossover fashion: there's a version with prominent fiddle and a version with prominent electric guitar. The song feels a little more like a natural fit on rock radio, though, and so far that's where it's had more success. 

One of my least favorite trends in R&B radio is sampling turn of the century hits by producers with really distinctive drums like Timbaland or The Neptunes but with contemporary 'trap' drums added to them. There are a couple of them out right now, with Lah Pat's "Pony"-sampling "Rodeo" being the biggest, but I much prefer this flip of Missy's "She's A Bitch" that's actually co-produced by and featuring Timbaland himself. Timbo has sampled himself in the past, on Tink "Million," which was part of his distasteful campaign to market Tink as a successor to Aaliyah. But "I'm That Bitch" puts kind of a fresh spin on a great song that was kind of underrated in its time. 

I feel like "qualified," a word that Prince sang only once, on "I Could Never Take The Place of Your Man," has become sort of a signifier for Prince pastiches, appearing on both Beck's Midnite Vultures and in Usher's most Prince-y track ever, which was surprisingly co-produced by Lil Jon. I really hope Usher finally releases an album soon, though, it feels like he keeps building all this momentum and being appreciated as a legend but not capitalizing on it. 

I've complained about this before, but I really dislike how big artists have sort of passively let the inevitable big streaming numbers on track 1 of an album turn it into a de facto single even when the song, like "Lavender Haze," just isn't really good enough to be a strong second single for a huge album. So I'm glad that Taylor Swift has finally picked a new single from Midnights and it's one of my favorites from the album. 

When "Sure Thing" was a huge #1 hit on R&B radio back in 2011, pop radio wouldn't touch it. So it's a little bittersweet to me that "Sure Thing" is suddenly all over Top 40 radio in 2023 after TikTok pushed it back onto the charts, like, you guys should've just embraced this song the first time around. But I hope Miguel, who hasn't released an album in over 5 years, does something with this momentum. "Give It To Me" doesn't really feel like a major song from him, but I like it, it's cool that he's not backing down from the guitar-heavy sound he's pursued over the years. 

Lil Donald has been kicking around the Atlanta rap scene for about a decade, initially making kind of anonymous stuff alongside familiar names like Zaytoven and Young Dro, But at some point he found some kind of strange niche with his biggest hits, "Do Better" and "Se7en Rules," these sort of sensitive songs addressed to women, telling them not to waste their time on unworthy or abusive men. "Se7en Rules" in particular is this kind of paternalistic rant addressed to his daughter that ends with a bluesy guitar solo. I don't know what to make of this stuff, like he could really take it in an unsavory direction if he keeps going, but for the moment this song really stands out on rap radio. 

North Carolina's Toosii is one of those guys that have been plentiful over the last 15 years who's kind of a rapper and a singer at the same time but not particularly good at either. I didn't like him much when he scored a minor hit with Summer Walker a couple years ago. And I really don't like "Favorite Song," his huge crossover hit that kind of came out of nowhere recently, it sounds like NBA YoungBoy trying to sing an Elton John ballad, but worse than whatever you're imagining.