There are singers, and then there are sangers — and the difference is always palpable.
For decades, vocalists harnessing virtuosic technique and the conviction and training of the Black church defined R&B just as much as the genre’s generational love songs and everlasting blues ballads (think the dizzying melisma or extended belts of the ’90s). But at the turn of the 2010s, a murkier, more ethereal take on the genre emerged that bridged the traditional songwriting machine with access-widening internet hubs like Tumblr and SoundCloud. Led by the likes of Frank Ocean, Jhené Aiko, The Weeknd and Miguel, this new generation of artists began to push R&B into a space that, at least temporarily, seemed to deprioritize more flamboyant displays of vocal prowess in favor of vocal tone and lyrical relatability.
As offshoots like alternative R&B, trap soul and vibe&B have relegated traditional R&B vocal stylings to the back burner, fans have noticed. A week doesn’t go by without some kind of online debate over the general state of vocal ability; quasi viral moments like Chaka Khan’s July 20 COLORS appearance — where the R&B legend bellowed a triumphant rendition of her classic “Through the Fire” — attract social media comments declaring that Artists today aren’t hooting and hollering anymore. As we settle squarely into the latter half of the 2020s and bask in the afterglow of a major year for mainstream R&B — led by 2025 Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hits like Leon Thomas’ “Mutt” and Kehlani’s “Folded” (which both peaked at No. 6) — is bigger still better when it comes to R&B vocals?
“We’ve been having this conversation for a while now,” says Grammy-winning songwriter-producer Bryan-Michael Cox, who’s helped craft big-voiced genre staples like Mary J. Blige’s 2005 smash “Be Without You.” “There was a period where it was just vibes; we’re almost at that 20-year cycle mark and artists [just] now are bringing vocal styling back to the forefront.”
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So when exactly did intentional vocal styling and general musicality start fading into the background of mainstream R&B? “Drake messed it up for everybody,” cracks Grammy- and Academy Award-winning producer D’Mile (Bruno Mars, Victoria Monét). Adds Cox: “He inspired a generation of artists who probably felt like they weren’t powerhouse singers, but the difference is he’s lyrically sound.” Drake — building on the mid- to late-2000s innovations of Ye, Phonte and T-Pain — helped establish the melodic rap subgenre as a mainstream force throughout the 2010s, particularly with his breakthrough hit, “Best I Ever Had,” on which he sang his own hook instead of recruiting an R&B singer. But those artists and their contemporaries were operating from the playbook of late-’90s and early-aughts hip-hop acts like 50 Cent, Ja Rule and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. They all infused hip-hop, and bolstered its commercial appeal, with melodies and subject matter that veered into the territory of R&B’s leading men. Throw in the popularization of Auto-Tune in hip-hop — which Ye’s 2008 808s & Heartbreak album accelerated — and the way social media effectively broke down the music industry’s traditional gatekeeping structure, and consumers began to prioritize vastly different qualities in R&B than they did in other eras.
“The tough part about being a singer is the emergence of rappers using Auto-Tune and melody,” says five-time Grammy-nominated R&B stalwart Tank. “People would rather hear bad or not-so-great singers sing OK than hear good singers sing really good.”
However, it’s the general consensus among listeners that the apparent deprioritization of “really good” singing stems from declining attendance at Black churches, once key community centers where children could hone their vocal talent, musical education and stage presence in front of discerning audiences that understood the value of tough love. “In the ’90s, there was still a great church foundation with references to John P. Kee, Commissioned, The Winans and the Clark Sisters,” Cox explains. “We lost a little bit of that church during the [SoundCloud] era.” The queerphobia upheld by Black Christianity has certainly played a part — shame and judgment have driven a number of talented queer vocalists away from the church over the past few decades — but D’Mile also contends that “there are the same amount of people in church, they just don’t get the same shot anymore because they aren’t the type of singers that labels, or the world, are looking for.
“I know so many great singers considered ‘too churchy’ to do mainstream stuff,” he continues. “They just seem too good — that’s a problem now. People just want to feel, they don’t want to think or worry about the technical aspects.”
In other words, for consumers today, it’s less about being in awe of Mariah Carey’s riffs, Whitney Houston’s belts or the technical aspects of a record, and more about connecting with artists and looking to their social media presence to strengthen that bond. In a way, superhuman vocals don’t read as “authentic” to many contemporary listeners because they’re not easily replicable. As the expectations of R&B audiences have shifted, vocal performances have become secondary to lyrical realism. “The concept of being able to sing was so much more appreciated [in past eras],” Tank says. And, over the last decade, The Weeknd’s stadium-conquering success, Aiko’s critical acclaim and Bryson Tiller’s cross-genre ubiquity proved that less showy vocalists could still become commercial powerhouses.
“The singers are there; I just feel like they’re not as appreciated as they once were,” D’Mile says. (Perhaps tellingly, several current powerhouse women declined to participate in this story.) “I always go back to Christina Aguilera; everybody knows she can sing her ass off… but nobody [seems to] want to hit those runs anymore. We’re in a world where people want to be able to easily listen and sing along without focusing on the acrobatics.”
At the start of the 2020s, several notable R&B crossover hits seemed to signal the emergence of a new era for the genre’s mainstream. Between Grammy-winning Hot 100 hits like Silk Sonic’s “Leave the Door Open” (No. 1), Jazmine Sullivan’s “Pick Up Your Feelings” (No. 75), Coco Jones’ “ICU” (No. 62), Muni Long’s “Hrs & Hrs” (No. 16), Beyoncé’s “Cuff It” (No. 6) and Steve Lacy’s “Bad Habit” (No. 1), R&B mainstream hits were defined by more traditional, well-crafted vocals. By the time Ryan Coogler’s Oscar-winning Sinners rolled around in early 2025, with its Grammy-winning compilation soundtrack peaking atop Billboard’s Blues Albums chart and thrusting jazz, soul and Delta blues back into the center of pop culture, it felt like a turning point for what works commercially for R&B.
“The [R&B singles] that are working are very midtempo,” says Tunji Balogun, CEO of Def Jam Recordings, which is currently home to Coco Jones and Teyana Taylor. “In the ’90s and 2000s, coming out of that new jack swing era, many of the songs that crossed over had tempo. I’ve noticed some fans bristle when a vocalist wants to make songs with tempo — and I want to crack the code on [fixing] that.”
While Cox, Tank and D’Mile have heard this debate on their side of the industry as artists, Balogun says he comes across this discourse primarily “within the online fan conversation.” There’s “a skepticism that the industry doesn’t want R&B to flourish,” he says. “[British Sudanese singer] Elmiene checks all the boxes for R&B purists … he’s living proof that the labels push great R&B, but it takes time and luck for these songs to connect. Most of these songs need a digital moment to coincide with its quality, and that’s not as easy to engineer as people think.”
Mainstream R&B has always featured vocalists of all stripes, but rising stars like Elmiene, Jai’Len Josey and Durand Bernarr — whose respective 2026 albums all earned acclaim for their impressive vocals — are part of what feels like a current recalibration of consumer taste and listening habits. D’Mile also credits stars like Leon Thomas and RAYE with “leaning toward actually singing again” and helping reprogram R&B’s vocal standards.
That level of audience reprograming also extends to pop, where, for the past decade or so, belters have taken a back seat to distinct, often quieter and less robust tones. While top 40 radio certainly loved recent full-throated hits like Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” and Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control,” those are still outliers as soft, bedroom pop voices dominate, further highlighting the difference from when American Idol ruled the zeitgeist and minted new stars throughout the 2000s. And with several R&B hitmakers also writing for the pop world, it’s no surprise that both genres are lacking mainstream vocal powerhouses.
“As a songwriter for 15 years, I watched people play Black songs, copy them, water it down, sing with Auto-Tune and leave out the runs — and it goes No. 1. And then, in those same rooms, they claim there’s no budget to send Black artists to top 40 radio,” reflects Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Muni Long, who wrote for the likes of Ariana Grande, Kelly Clarkson and Rihanna before stepping out as an artist in her own right. “Thank God [label executives] listen to me when I say, ‘I need y’all to be my partners.’ You can’t do a TikTok dance to ‘I Will Always Love You.’ If we have a smash record we believe in, I need them to throw the kitchen sink behind it — and they did with ‘Made for Me,’ ” Muni’s 2024 single that reached the Hot 100’s top 20 and spent 22 weeks on the chart. “We need to tell the world what time it is and stop allowing them to dictate what we do.”
And while artists still largely relegate their most ambitious vocals to deep cuts, leaving more straightforward takes for their radio singles, records like “Folded” show it’s possible to strike what Tank describes as “the balance of a [melody] where you hang with me and [subtle] bits to let you know that I’m still a little different from you [vocally].
“People are diving back into Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Luther Vandross and Chaka Khan, and that’s why they’re in love with Kehlani, Ariana [Grande], Jazmine [Sullivan] and Fantasia,” he continues. According to Luminate, official on-demand U.S. catalog streams for Houston, Vandross and Khan more than doubled in the first half of the 2020s compared with the latter half of the 2010s, while those for Franklin leapt 89%. “We have our versions of those vocalists; we just have to rally around them and give them the freedom to truly be creative.”
As younger artists rediscover the vocal magicians of past decades — and as the rise of AI inspires greater respect for traditional craft and the unique capabilities of actual human voices — mainstream R&B will likely continue to boast a range of vocalists. But now, the scales are slightly tipped in favor of singers working in the storied tradition of good old-fashioned flat-footed belters.
“Everybody’s definition of a ‘great voice’ is very different,” Balogun says. “R&B is the source material for damn near every genre, vocally. We need to do a better job of elevating people whose artistry honors and evokes the origins of the genre; it’s important to celebrate the people who have that natural God-given instrument. But there’s also room for people who have a different approach.”
This story appears in the Aug. 22, 2026, issue of Billboard.