Why Did Everything Finally Seem to Click for R&B on a Mainstream Level in 2025? (Critic’s Take)

R&B had a lot to celebrate in 2025. From Leon Thomas’ breakthrough to Chris Brown’s record-breaking stadium tour, it finally felt like the genre had properly reestablished itself as a mainstream force. And given the incessant questioning of the genre’s vitality over the better part of the past 10 years — the word “finally” is absolutely justified. While it’s been a banner year for the genre, the music industry gods didn’t just flip a switch to revive R&B in the mainstream; this year is the direct result of several intersecting scenes that have ridden larger cultural and sociopolitical shifts to usher in a new, rich, diverse era of R&B. 

If you’ve been paying attention, R&B’s mainstream resurgence has been brewing on the Billboard charts since the turn of the decade. Aided by the relatively pop-adjacent late-2010s breakthroughs of SZA, Khalid and Summer Walker, R&B spun out several hits that garnered notable pop success. In 2020, fresh off the Hot 100 top 10 glory of the previous year’s Drake-assisted “No Guidance” (No. 5), Chris Brown returned to the region at an even higher peak of No. 3 with “Go Crazy,” alongside Young Thug.  

Jazmine Sullivan closed out that year with “Pick Up Your Feelings,” the Grammy-winning Heaux Tales lead single that would become her first Hot 100 hit in over a decade (No. 75). At the top of 2021, Bruno Mars & Anderson .Paak teamed up for their ‘70s soul-tributing Silk Sonic project, which launched the Hot 100 chart-topper “Leave the Door Open.” That year also saw R&B top the Hot 100 in Justin Bieber’s “Peaches,” which featured Daniel Caesar and GIVĒON, both of whom earned their own breakthroughs a few years prior. By 2022, Muni Long exploded onto the scene with “Hrs & Hrs” (No. 16), and Beyoncé’s dance-rooted Renaissance launched an R&B crossover hit in “Cuff It” (No. 6). In 2023, Long returned to the top 20 with “Made for Me” (No. 20), while 2024 saw the Hot 100 breakthroughs of Victoria Monét (“On My Mama,” No. 33) and Coco Jones (“ICU,” No. 62). 

Sure, this wasn’t the chart domination of 2004 — led by Usher’s Confessions singles holding the Hot 100’s top spot for a whopping 28 combined weeks — but the first few years of this young decade signaled a mainstream shift toward R&B, as hip-hop’s commercial pull seemed to be waning from its 2010s peak. The week hip-hop famously had no songs in the Hot 100’s top 40, R&B boasted four, and that’s not counting R & B-adjacent hits from Bieber, Ravyn Lenae and Tinashe. Of course, as the two genres are inextricably tied, R&B’s re-ascension happened, in part, within hip-hop spaces. Every Super Bowl halftime show from 2021-2025 has featured either an R&B headliner or performer(s) with extensive R&B catalogs; the Roc Nation-curated extravaganza has welcomed the likes of The Weeknd, Mary J. Blige, Rihanna, Usher and SZA in recent years, keeping multiple eras and styles of R&B on America’s biggest stage this decade. 

These halftime shows aired in tandem with hip-hop’s drill era, whose sample drill scene saw several hit songs reimagining R&B tunes: The late Pop Smoke reached No. 9 on the Hot 100 with 2021’s “What You Know Bout Love,” which flipped Ginuwine’s “Differences,” while B-Lovee earned a RIAA Gold-certified hit with “My Everything,” which reconfigured Mary J. Blige’s 1997 song “Everything.” By 2024, U.K. R&B singer Jordan Adetunji turned Summer Walker’s “Potential” into “Kehlani,” scoring a top 40 hit (No. 24), a Grammy nomination and a remix with Kehlani herself in the process. During this time TikTok helped revive numerous older R&B hits — Guy’s “I Like” (1989), Mint Condition’s “Breakin’ My Heart” (1991) and Miguel’s “Sure Thing” (2010), which even became a crossover chart hit all over again — via viral trends, further reigniting consumers’ desire for the “yearning” of the genre’s past eras.

That “yearning” is felt throughout this year’s defining R&B hits: Kehlani’s “Folded” and Leon Thomas’ “Mutt.” The former soared to No. 7 on the Hot 100 and became the first top 10 hit of the long-venerated Kehlani’s career, while the latter peaked at No. 6 and cemented Thomas’ breakthrough as a recording artist. Both songs slowly ascended to cultural ubiquity, crossing over to mainstream top 40 radio in the process: as of the Dec. 13 chart tally, both songs even rank within the top 30 of Pop Airplay. At next year’s Grammys, both songs will compete for best R&B performance.

2024 will be remembered as the year everybody went country — and the ramifications of that genre’s surge were present across R&B this year, with the Southern Soul movement reaffirming Beyoncé’s focus on Southern Black American culture. While “Folded” and “Mutt” got the chart success, 803Fresh scored a legitimate cultural crossover moment with the line dance-assisted “Boots on the Ground.” Released at the tail end of 2024, “Boots” peaked at No. 20 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs this year and reached over 130,000 official sound uses on TikTok alone. Beyoncé even mixed the song with her own “Heated” every night on the Cowboy Carter Tour, the highest-grossing solo trek of 2025. As “Boots” reached everyone from Queen Bey to Kamala Harris, Death Row’s Tonio Armani earned a similar dance-centric street hit with “Cowgirl Trailride,” while his “Country Girl” reached No. 3 on Adult R&B Airplay. 

These songs are gems from the Southern Soul movement, which has also buoyed some of the genre’s most interesting left-of-center breakouts over the past year. Memphis-bred singer Kirby inspired myriad social media conversations with “Na$ty,” a funky number from her Miss Black America LP; South Carolina by way of Florida singer-songwriter Gabriel Jacoby earned acclaim for his Gutta Child debut project, and Mississippi-raised crooner TA Thomas dropped a near-flawless Southern Soul EP. Moreover, Tennessee’s EJ Jones regularly went viral thanks to his soulful, beyond-his-years vocals, and more contemporary-leaning Southern stars like Texas’ Josh Levi and Dende earned Billboard’s R&B Rookie of the Month title in 2025. These aren’t the releases dominating Billboard’s year-end charts, but their gritty soul definitely captured the streets. 

The U.S. South wasn’t the only region to impress this year: our friends across the pond also sneakily launched what feels like the first proper British soul crossover wave since Adele, Amy Winehouse and Leona Lewis crashed the scene in the late ‘00s. FLO, a girl group that first broke through in 2022, spent the year touring their now-Grammy-nominated Access All Areas LP in sold-out venues across the U.S.;and U.K. The trio also guested on With All Due Respect, kwn’s standout RCA debut, which also included the Kehlani-assisted R&B Songs top 10 hit “Worst Behaviour” (No. 9). Notably, “Worst” was co-written with Sasha Keable, Billboard’s November R&B Rookie of the Month, who recently supported GIVĒON on his most recent tour and made waves with her own Act Right P. 

At the same time, U.K.-raised Afrofusion singer Odeal, Billboard African Rookie of the Year, established himself with his The Summer That Saved Me and The Fall That Saved Us projects following 2024’s “Soh Soh” breakthrough, and British-Sudanese singer Elmiene garnered acclaim for his Heat the Streets mixtape, as well as a Brit Rising Star nomination. 

This year’s wave of U.K. R&B artists finding U.S. audiences arrives after years of Cleo Sol and Sault establishing the region’s ethereal new sound with lauded, Mercury Prize-nominated projects and buzzy international one-off live performances. And, although she simultaneously competes in the top 40 arena, RAYE’s (and, to a slightly lesser extent, Olivia Dean’s) incorporation of classic soul and Motown aesthetics is further proof of a new, more low-key British Invasion. They haven’t yet equaled the peaks of that late-’00s wave, but the groundwork is clearly being laid.

As a new global generation of younger R&B stars emerges, the genre’s sound is evolving to reflect that transition. Parts of this evolution happened amid the backdrop of President Trump’s second term, whose campaign and first year have helped stoke enragingly homophobic and transphobic flames. Enter a slate of largely indie, queer artists expanding contemporary R&B by incorporating house elements, studying Prince’s rock proclivities and finding salvation in the wee hours between Saturday night and Sunday morning. 

While kwn and Kehlani held it down for queer female-identifying folk, Durand Bernarr delivered one of the year’s best R&B albums in Bloom, which gave way to a packed stateside theater tour and three Grammy nominations. Destin Conrad, whose Love on Digital translated Gen Z’s internet-stained coming-of-age across a kaleidoscopic soundscape, also launched a headlining tour and earned a Grammy nod. 

Infinite Coles, a rising singer with Wu-Tang Clan family ties, blended hip-hop soul with ballroom on his Sweetface Killah ebut project. A stalwart of the genre’s more experimental edges, Blood Orange delighted critics with Essex Honey, while Khalid publicly embraced his queerness across an album of danceable rhythmic pop and introspective R&B. What’s important to note is that these songs aren’t drowning in metaphor and double entendre, they’re quite plainly about boys kissing boys and girls hunching on girls — and they’re finding sustainable audiences that are buying tickets and streaming music even when radio is slow on the uptake. 

As the young cats find their footing and establish the leaders of the new era, the genre’s veterans are also reaping the rewards of R&B’s 2020s upswing. Inspired by the touring success of R&B veterans like Usher (2024’s Past Present Future Tour), Janet Jackson (2023’s Together Again Tour) and Xscape & SWV (2024’s Queens of R&B Tour), several legends hit the road in 2025: Patti LaBelle, Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight & Stephanie Mills teamed up for The Queens Tour; Mary J. Blige recruited Ne-Yo and Mario for her For My Fans Tour and John Legend and Keyshia Cole launched headlining tours to commemorate 20 years of Get Lifted and The Way It Is, respectively. 

Above all, Brandy and Monica packed arenas across the country on their co-headlining The Boy Is Mine Tour, which recruited Kelly Rowland, Mýa, Muni Long, and American Idol victor Jamal Roberts as special guests. But the glow isn’t limited to nostalgia — Mariah Carey reached No. 7 on the Billboard 200 with Here for It All, while lead single, “Type Dangerous” even topped Adult R&B Airplay, Carey’s first track to do so in 20 years. 

What’s especially beautiful about this moment is how the veterans, current genre leaders and up-and-comers have developed a synergy that benefits them all as mainstream interest in R&B continues to grow. Brandy and Monica invited Coco Jones to open several Boy Is Mine shows, Usher used his post-Super Bowl momentum to sign rising R&B singer JayDon, George Clinton passed the torch to Leon Thomas onstage at Coachella and Kehlani reached for ‘00s R&B vocal playbooks like Toni Braxton and Tank with her Folded Homage remix EP. Seeing these exchanges flow in both directions across R&B’s generations bodes very well for the genre’s long-term health.

All these intersecting forces have resulted in a year where unmistakably and unapologetically soulful solo R&B cuts like “Folded” and “Mutt” can live in the Hot 100’s top 10. GIVĒON also reached the Billboard 200’s top 10 with his Beloved album, earned a Grammy nod and closed out his accompanying headlining tour by selling out his first arena show at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. Mariah the Scientist landed a long-sought-after commercial breakthrough with “Burning Blue.” Chris Brown sold out stadiums and scored a top 20 hit alongside Bryson Tiller with “It Depends” (No. 16). Teyana Taylor, a leading Oscar contender in one of the year’s most acclaimed films (One Battle After Another), earned her first career Grammy nomination for her retirement-ending Escape Room LP. SZA co-headlined the Grand National Tour, now the highest-grossing joint tour in history, which paid tribute to the Quiet Storm queen Anita Baker every night!

R&B is thriving, and 2025 feels like the year the rest of the world was officially put on notice. This kind of success doesn’t happen overnight, nor does it happen in a vacuum. While naysayers and doubters reveled in jeering at the genre’s valleys, an eclectic coalition of younger artists and listeners has ushered in what’s hopefully the first of many peaks to come for R&B, in the 2020s and beyond.