The 20 Best R&B Radio Hits of 2025
Most years that I've done EOY R&B lists, it feels like I'm talking around the huge collapse of crossover success for R&B after pop radio kind of circled the wagons around white synth pop singers circa Lady Gaga and stopped playing people like Ne-Yo and Ciara. For the last decade or so, the story has been that Beyonce and Chris Brown are recession-proof, SZA's success is fairly singular, and everyone else is way more marginalized by the pop machine than previous generations of R&B stars. But this year it actually felt like the pendulum is swinging back toward R&B, for Leon Thomas and Kehlani most prominently but across the broad for a whole lot of artists, which is exciting to see.
Here's the Spotify playlist, and the rap list I posted yesterday.
1. Summer Walker - "Spend It"
#26 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
Summer Walker is emblematic of the 'toxic R&B' that I've always had mixed feelings about -- I think the latest funny/mean nickname I've heard is 'chicken alfredo boomerang music.' But I've started to feel like she writes really thoroughly and consistently about how a cynical, materialistic view of relationships is often a direct result of the disappointment that can come from putting love first. "Spend It" in particular articulates that in a dryly funny way, and I'm annoyed that it was left off of most editions of Finally Over It after underperforming as the album's second advance single.
2. Jenevieve - "Head Over Heels"
#26 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
I just fell for this song and Jenevieve's album Crysalis pretty recently, great stuff. One of my Twitter friends put me on to the fact that "Head Over Heels" is based on G. Dep's pre-Bad Boy 1996 independent single "Head Over Wheels," which itself sampled a 1981 track by Tom Browne of "Funkin' For Jamaica (N.Y.)" fame. I love when R&B songs are built on beats from relatively obscure rap songs, like Teedra Moses's "Be Your Girl" sampling the Nas song from the Street Fighter soundtrack.
3. Coco Jones - "Taste"
#18 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
Amber Mark made my favorite R&B album of 2025, but as far as records that got radio play, Coco Jones's Why Not More? isn't far behind it. Around here I heard the follow-up "On Sight" on the radio more than "Taste," even though it charted lower nationally. but both are awesome songs and I love how that sample from "Toxic" by Britney Spears just works on an R&B record so much better than I ever would've expected.
4. Kehlani - "Folded"
#2 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #7 Hot 100
Kehlani had a pretty good 2024, releasing two full-lengths and appearing on the remix to a hit song named after her, but I really had no clue she was about to release by far the biggest song of her career. And "Folded" doesn't feel like any kind of reboot or departure, it's just a good-ass midtempo R&B song with some really nice vocal runs and harmonies. And I love that it was co-produced by D.K. The Punisher, a Baltimore native who I profiled a decade ago.
5. Leon Thomas - "Mutt"
#1 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #6 Hot 100
I've always been a fan of Ariana Grande's more R&B-leaning stuff, so it's pretty cool that two people who worked on a lot of her records, Victoria Monet and her old "Victorious" co-star Leon Thomas, have become two of the fastest rising R&B stars of the past couple years, each with a bunch of Grammy nominations. "Mutt" is so overplayed at this point and I was pretty annoyed that a Chris Brown remix was part of the song's final push to crossover success, but I'm happy for dude and really like the new stuff on the Pholks EP.
6. JayDon f/ Paradise - "Lullaby"
#21 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
JayDon is kind of a child-actor-turned-R&B-star success story like Leon Thomas. At 11, JD McRary voiced the young Simba as Donald Glover's counterpart in the 2019 remake of The Lion King, singing "I Just Can't Wait To Be King" and "Hakuna Matata." Now McRary is 18, recording under the name JayDon, is signed to Usher's new label, and I feel like every week I hear "Lullaby" on the radio more often, this record is really blowing up.
7. SZA f/ Kendrick Lamar - "30 For 30"
#3 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #10 Hot 100
With rap/R&B collaborations, I kind of default to slotting the song into the genre of whoever is the 'primary' artist, but obviously that feel a little counterintuitive for something like Kendrick and SZA's two huge recent songs together. "Luther" is a gorgeous melodic song from Kendrick's album, and "30 For 30" is a fun uptempo banger that jacks the beat from Rich Boy's southern rap classic "Throw Some D's," so it's kind of funny to put them on the lists they're on, but they're both awesome records.
8. Ella Mai - "Little Things"
#16 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #81 Hot 100
Obviously there are basketball stars like Allen Iverson who brought a real sense of swagger and style to the NBA, but I feel like people on social media have gotten too comfortable in thinking they're cooler than less outwardly charismatic hoopers like Jayson Tatum and Klay Thompson. So I appreciate the recent singles by Ella Mai and Megan Thee Stallion kind of unintentionally making the point that oh hey, those guys are still rich championship athletes who have beautiful women writing lovey dovey songs about them.
9. Fridayy f/ Meek Mill - "Proud Of Me"
#32 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #87 Hot 100
"Proud of Me" and Clipse's "The Birds Don't Sing" both struck a big nerve this year and really reminded me that a lot of us have lost a parent or both parents, and quietly carry around pain from that every day, and it can really hit hard when to hear that expressed in a song so viscerally. Being a Meek Mill fan hasn't really been going great the last few years, too, so it was nice to hear him just rap his ass off on a track with no drums like "Dreams & Nightmares" again.
10. Mariah The Scientist - "Burning Blue"
#3 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #25 Hot 100
I don't know why "Burning Blue" was immediately huge in a way that none of Mariah The Scientist's previous songs were. Maybe the publicity of being in a relationship with Young Thug raised her profile, but I would think that as soon as she was no longer on Tory Lanez's label the universe just started sending good things her way. But I'm a sucker for any modern R&B production that imitates Prince's '80s LinnDrum sound. Mariah Amani Buckles was born in 1997, named after Mariah Carey, who'd just scored her 12th #1 single, so maybe it was fated for Buckles to have a successful singing career, even if her vocal range, well, it's not really on the level of her namesake.
11. Mariah Carey - "Type Dangerous"
#7 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #95 Hot 100
Even in an unlikely year when she's not the most prominent Mariah on the charts (annual Hot 100 ascent of "All I Want For Christmas Is You" notwithstanding), Mimi had a pretty good year, singing words like "rigamarole" over an Eric B & Rakim sample on her biggest R&B radio hit in 17 years.
12. 803Fresh - "Boots On The Ground"
#6 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
For me and a lot of music lovers, the phrase "southern soul" brings to mind Stax Records guys like Rufus Thomas and Otis Redding and their '60s contemporaries. But southern soul is increasingly identified with a growing movement of regional stars, a style with lots of organ and guitar and gospel-influenced vocals along but more contemporary drum machine-driven beats, and line dances to go with them, singers like King George, N'Tune, Nelly "Tiger" Travis, and TK Soul (Cupid of "Cupid Shuffle" fame also does shows with those artists). 803Fresh's "Boots On the Ground" feels like a serious tipping point song for that whole scene breaking into mainstream radio, with Tonio Armani's "Country Girl" following close behind it.
13. Camper f/ Tone Stith - "Waiting On You"
#22 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
Darhyl Camper Jr., better known as DJ Camper or simply Camper, has a produced a good number of the best R&B hits of the last 15 years, I guess he's released a couple singles from a solo project featuring various singles, and it's up to the standard he's set with his previous work, I'm looking forward to the album or whatever it is.
14. Tyla - "Is It"
#25 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
As the first international star from the South African amapiano scene, Tyla has already far surpassed any reasonable career expectations. But there's this weird thing that happens when someone with really obvious beauty, talent, and charisma doesn't instantly become an A-lister and people start to treat them as a weird charity case, it's been happening with Tinashe for ages and it's happened really quickly to Tyla. But she's had a pretty good run of hits since "Water" that just aren't as great or as big as "Water," and "Is It" is my favorite of those.
15. Moliy f/ Silent Addy, Skillibeng, and Shenseea - "Shake It To The Max (Fly) [Remix]"
#8 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #44 Hot 100
It feels like an illustration of just how much Afrobeats/Afropop/amapiano/etc. has supplanted dancehall and other Caribbean styles in the U.S. that Skillibeng and Shenseea, two of the biggest new stars to emerge from Jamaica in the last ten years, have each only gotten on the Hot 100 once by guesting on a Ghanaian artist's song. It was a pretty huge song, though, notably snubbed by the Grammys recently on a weird technicality, and I hope it helps the Jamaican artists get a bit more of a foothold on the American charts, "Puni Police" should have been a smash.
16. Wizkid f/ Brent Faiyaz - "Piece of My Heart"
#37 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
Wizkid was really the first African artist to break through in the 2010s and kickstart this current era of Afrobeats crossover, and he hasn't remained the biggest artist on that scene, but I like the stuff he puts out, his voice sounds great with Brent Faiyaz's on this, his biggest UK hit since "Essence." I also love the way the song doesn't have a sleek modern 'beat switch' but a sound effect of cassette tapes being stopped and ejected and inserted before "Piece of My Heart" transitions into a totally different tune for its last minute.
17. Juiicy 2xs - "Leave My Man Alone"
#21 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
Cincinatti-born singer Juiicy 2xs had the most popular track on the Future-curated 2019 compilation 1800 Seconds Vol. 2 and she kept it pushing from there and had her first radio hit this year, a funny little song from the perspective of a possessive girlfriend ("Even if it's his birthday, don't tell him happy birthday/ 'cause why the fuck you happy he's born?").
18. Chris Brown f/ Bryson Tiller - "It Depends"
#1 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #16 Hot 100
It's not surprising at all that the Cash Cobain "sexy drill" sound is quickly becoming the trendy flavor of radio R&B, I expect half the hits of 2026 to sound like this.
19. October London - "She Keeps Calling"
#18 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
The whole uncanny valley Marvin Gaye impersonation thing made October London famous, but I'm glad he's actually moving on from that and making songs that sound like what I guess is just himself.
20. Teyana Taylor f/ Lucky Date - "Hard Part"
#24 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
It's been nice to see so many former G.O.O.D. Music artists who evacuated from neo-nazi boy's sinking ship move on and do things elsewhere, from Pusha and Sean to Common and Cudi. Even Teyana Taylor, whose experience with G.O.O.D. was so shitty that she retired from music in 2020 returned this year with a pretty good album pointedly titled Escape Room, got her first Grammy nomination,
The 20 Worst R&B Radio Hits of 2025:
1. EJ James - "Gas Station Love"
2. Chino - "Weird"
3. Sailorr - "Pookie's Requiem"
4. YahYah & Domo - "Nasty Work"
5. Rihanna - "Friend of Mine"
6. Ciara - "Ecstasy"
7. Muni Long - "Superpowers"
8. Chris Brown - "Holy Blindfold"
9. Marque Houston - "Hold On"
10. Queen Naija - "Good Girls Finish Last"
Previously: The 20 Best R&B Radio Hits of 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.
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on Thursday, December 04, 2025 at 1:42 PM.
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