RNB RADAR
R&B. Culture. Commentary. [email protected] 📨
How many of y’all been playing this off YouTube for ten years?
Jacquees put ‘Bounce’ on streaming. The song came out in 2016 with a video and never made it to DSPs until it landed on his album ‘Mood’ this summer.
Jacquees, Bounce, Mood, Jacquees Bounce, R&B throwback, 2016 R&B
09/15/2026
Comment HANDS and we’ll send you the entry form straight to your DM. 🎟️
We’ve got 5 pairs of tickets for Broccoli City’s Holding Hands: An R&B Experience, this Saturday, September 19 at Jiffy L**e Live in Virginia. Summer Walker headlines, with kwn, Elmiene, Destin Conrad, R&B Only, and Club 1BD on the bill.
Winners picked at random and announced Thursday. Must be able to attend in Virginia on Saturday. Good luck. 🍀
Who else is proud of kwn 🥹?!?
The UK finally launched a dedicated R&B chart, and kwn just became the first name to ever top it. ‘Good Girl’ is the No. 1 on the inaugural chart, which means whoever comes after her, that first spot belongs to kwn forever. After the year she’s had, the album, the sold-out tour, the co-signs, it’s fitting. Congratulations, kwn. 🇬🇧
kwn, Good Girl, Official Charts, UK R&B, R&B chart, new music 2026
How good is Bruno Mars and Karol G’s ‘Still’? 🥹
The official video is here, filmed the night he surprised her sold-out SoFi Stadium crowd for the song’s first-ever live performance. Black and white through the rehearsals, full color the moment they hit the stage. The duet debuted at No. 4 on the Hot 100, and the video makes it feel even bigger. Watch ‘Still’ now.
Bruno Mars, Karol G, Still, The Romantic, SoFi Stadium, R&B, pop
09/14/2026
Who are you most excited to see at this one? 👀👇🏽
Spotify and Live Nation Urban just announced RNB X Live: Dallas, their biggest R&B live event yet. Erykah Badu comes home fresh off her first project in 11 years, H.E.R. makes a rare return to the stage, and kwn, Destin Conrad, Jai’Len Josey, and Dallas’s own rjtheweirdo round out the bill. Tickets are on sale now, and select performances will stream on Spotify Live for everyone who can’t make it. November 1.
RNB X, Spotify, Erykah Badu, HER, kwn, Destin Conrad, Dallas, R&B, live music
Comment “RADAR” and I’ll DM you the only UK R&B playlist you’ll ever need 🇬🇧 Who are you most excited to see on the first ever official UK R&B chart?
For the first time ever, the UK has an official chart dedicated solely to R&B. kwn leads the first edition with “Good Girl” at number one and “risk it all” at number three. FLO, Jorja Smith, Cleo Sol, Odeal, Olivia Dean and Ella Mai all made the first top 20.
We’ll be posting the chart every week.
uk rnb, official chart, kwn, rnb radar, new rnb
Tony! Toni! Toné! released “Anniversary” 33 years ago today, and most people have never heard the whole thing.
The version you know is the radio edit, about four minutes. The album version runs nine minutes and twenty-seven seconds. Raphael Saadiq, still going by Raphael Wiggins then, wrote it with keyboardist Carl Wheeler, and they built it like an Isaac Hayes record: Clare Fischer, the man who arranged strings for Prince, handled the orchestra, and Gerald Albright played the sax solo that takes it home. Part of “Sons of Soul” was recorded at Caribbean Sound Basin in Trinidad, which is why the whole album breathes the way it does.
It hit No.2 on the R&B chart, cracked the top 10 on the Hot 100, went Gold, and earned two Grammy nominations. But the number that matters is nine minutes and twenty-seven seconds. Put the full version on tonight.
✍🏾 Tomi
tony toni tone, anniversary, raphael saadiq, sons of soul, 90s r&b, radar replies
09/14/2026
What’s your favorite Amy Winehouse song? 👇🏽
Today, we remember the late singer-songwriter on what would have been her 43rd birthday. Amy’s music carried the fingerprints of soul, jazz, doo-wop, Motown, hip-hop, and classic heartbreak, but she made it feel unmistakably her own.
From Frank to Back to Black, she became one of the most distinctive voices of her generation, earning critical acclaim, global success, and five Grammy wins in one night.
Happy heavenly birthday, Amy Winehouse. 🎈
4 years ago today, we lost Jesse Powell. 🕊️
Most people know one Jesse Powell song, and they know it cold. “You” is the slow jam that closed out a thousand late-night radio shows, the one where the tenor floats up and never comes back down. He had a four-octave range, gospel-raised in Gary, Indiana, the same city that gave us the Jacksons, and he grew up singing in church with his sisters Trina and Tamara.
“You” is a song that R&B heads around the world hold in high regard but did you know when it came out on his debut album in 1996, it released didn’t make any noise in the charts. It sat there for three years. Then his label put it back out as a single in 1999, and this time it went to No.2 on the R&B chart and No.10 on the Hot 100, the only top 10 pop hit of his career.
He wrote it with Carl Roland, the friend he’d moved to Los Angeles with in 1993 chasing a record deal, before Louil Silas Jr. of New Edition fame spotted him at a showcase and signed him. And those sisters he grew up singing with? Trina & Tamara, the voices on “My Love Is the Shhh!”, a No.4 pop hit in 1997.
He passed the day after his birthday, at home in Los Angeles. RIP to the Legend 🤍🙏🏾
✍🏾 Tomi
jesse powell, you, 90s r&b, gary indiana, trina and tamara, radar replies
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