Rolling Stone's 20 Best R&B Albums of 2017

Khalid\'s soft-lit ’80s synths and heartfelt, raspy vocals will catch your attention from the start, but it’s his effortless warmth and sincerity that will keep you coming back. An alumnus of the Apple Music Up Next program and a 2018 GRAMMY® Award contender, the Texas songwriter is one of the year’s most impressive newcomers. *American Teen*, his sensational debut album, is all about summer sunshine, young love, and the adventures of tight-knit friends—subjects perfectly matched with the elegant blend of throwback R&B, ‘80s pop, and glitchy future-soul.

Until a late flurry of percussion arrives, doleful guitar and bass are Solána Rowe’s only accompaniment on opener “Supermodel,” a stinging kiss-off to an adulterous ex. It doesn’t prepare you for the inventively abstract production that follows—disembodied voices haunting the airy trap-soul of “Broken Clocks,” “Anything”’s stuttering video-game sonics—but it instantly establishes the emotive power of her rasping, percussive vocal. Whether she’s feeling empowered by her physicality on the Kendrick Lamar-assisted “Doves in the Wind” or wrestling with insecurity on “Drew Barrymore,” SZA’s songs impact quickly and deeply.

Before *War & Leisure*\'s release, its carefree lead single, “Sky Walker,” was a revelation that there’d been a Miguel-sized hole in R&B for the two years since *Wildheart*. *War & Leisure* as a title is a metaphor for the singer’s affection, Miguel singing, “No matter where I go on the map/You got my protection” on “Banana Clip.” His love for fuzzy guitars is clear throughout, and “Told You So” recalls Prince at his most danceable. Add to this the off-kilter bounce and multilingual verses of “Caramelo Duro (featuring Kali Uchis),” and *War & Leisure* is geared to propel Miguel to even greater heights.

R&B singer Kelela’s deeply personal debut LP does just what it says on the label. Over beats from Jam City, Bok Bok, Kingdom, and Arca—which swerve from warped and aqueous to warm and lush to icy and danceable—Kelela turns her emotions inside out with a sultriness and self-assuredness that few underground artists can muster. She’s tough and forthright, tender and subdued on songs about breakups (“Frontline”), makeups (“Waitin”), and pickups (“LMK”)—and the way she spins from one mode to the next is dizzying in the best way possible.

“When I got kicked out of school, music saved my life,” Daniel Caesar told Beats 1. “I’m trying to live my hero\'s journey.” Caesar’s own journey found him questioning God, leaving home, finding love—and later, heartache—and ultimately penning *Freudian*. This gripping debut LP earned him a spot in the Apple Music Up Next program and eventually a GRAMMY® nomination for Best R&B Album. An exquisite mix of R&B, soul, and smoothed-out rock, it includes his breakout single “Get You (feat. Kali Uchis)” and intimate collaborations with Syd, H.E.R., and Charlotte Day Wilson.

The album that finally reveals a superstar. Sampha Sisay spent his nascent career becoming music’s collaborator à la mode—his CV includes impeccable work with the likes of Solange, Drake, and Jessie Ware—and *Process* fully justifies his considered approach to unveiling a debut full-length. It’s a stunning album that sees the Londoner inject raw, gorgeous emotion into each of his mini-epics. His electronic R&B sounds dialed in from another dimension on transformative opener “Plastic 100°C,” and “Incomplete Kisses” is an anthem for the broken-hearted that retains a smoothness almost exclusive to this very special talent. “(No One Knows Me) Like the Piano,” meanwhile, makes a solid case for being 2017’s most beautiful song.

Syd, of The Internet and Odd Future fame, shows another side of her musical persona. *Fin* takes a carnal R&B turn with all the complex emotions it brings. Her demure voice gives strong vapors of Aaliyah and *Velvet Rope*-era Janet Jackson on “Drown In It,” “Body,” and “Know.” Syd gives herself a pep talk on “All About Me” and gets lit on “Dollar Bills” and “Nothin to Somethin.” And this being Syd, the tracks glisten with futuristic shine.

Kehlani Parrish reached the release of her debut album the hard way—dues paid in a teen pop band and on *America\'s Got Talent*, various personal struggles—but it’s helped sharpen her silky R&B with a bewitching edge. She can do radio-friendly summer jams (“Distraction” and “Undercover”), but really comes alive when the Sweet and Sexy gets outmuscled by the Savage. “Not Used to It” hits deep, while “Too Much” and “Do U Dirty” are gloriously lewd and completely brilliant.

“I feel weird,” repeats Stephen Bruner on “Captain Stupido”. That’s encouraging because the leftfield moments have always lent his jazz/funk/soft-rock fusions singular charm—even here when he meows through “A Fan’s Mail (Tron Song Suite II)”. By those standards, the melancholy “Walk On By”, with its pensive verse from Kendrick Lamar, and “Show You the Way”—co-starring soft-rock icons Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins—feel irresistibly straightforward, but their velvet melodies are as beguiling as Bruner’s falsetto harmonies.

Since emerging onto the scene in 2014, Moses Sumney has ridden a wave of word-of-mouth praise, hushed recordings, and dynamic live performances. It's an organic, patient ascent all too rare in today's musical climate. In a voice both mellifluous and haunting, Sumney makes future music that transmogrifies classic tropes, like moon-colony choir reinterpretations of old jazz gems. His vocals narrate a personal journey through universal loneliness atop otherworldly compositional backdrops. Following the self-release of his debut cassette EP, Mid-City Island, and 2015's 7", Seeds/Pleas, Sumney has performed around the world alongside forebears like David Byrne, Karen O, Sufjan Stevens, Solange, James Blake and more. With his 2016 Lamentations EP, The California and Ghana-raised troubadour widened the spectrum of his heretofore "bedroom" music, incorporating songs that feature more elaborate production and evocative songwriting. Now his inspired ascent continues. His proper debut album, Aromanticism is a concept album about lovelessness as a sonic dreamscape. It seeks to interrogate the social constructions around romance. The debut will include the devastating, billowing synths of "Doomed,” which in a way serves as the album’s thesis statement, as well as new versions of standouts "Lonely World" and "Plastic.” It’s a deliberate, jaw-dropping statement that can leave you both enlightened and empty.

Ty Dolla $ign raises the bar for the third installment of *Beach House*, a mixtape series that old fans hold in very high esteem. The album carries no shortage of the smirk-inducing, club-ready sex talk he broke with, but also ruminates on fame and its pressures, as well as the frailty of new relationships. At 20 tracks, there\'s plenty of room for friends (the guest list is in the double digits), but they\'re not just tossed-off featured verses. The bouncy and subdued “Stare” featuring Pharrell and Wiz Khalifa might just earn a place in each of their canons.

Curtis Harding's new album Face Your Fear is out October 27 on Anti-. New York Magazine already named the forthcoming album one of their most anticipated fall releases lauding Harding’s “scorching voice” while Clash UK hails recent new track “On and On” as “a blistering slice of dancefloor soul that recalls prime Curtis Mayfield and late 60s Motown.” The new album follows 2014’s Soul Power, on which Rolling Stone called Harding an “artist you need to know.” Harding fuels his psychedelic sound with the essence of Soul but isn’t bound by it. Instead, the 12 songs on the new album convey an eclectic blend of genres leaping from the many musical lives he has lived from following his evangelical Gospel-singing mother on tour as a child in Michigan to rapping in Atlanta, forming a garage band with The Black Lips’ Cole Alexander to singing back-up for Cee Lo Green. Through these experiences he fully embraces life’s darkest intricacies conjuring dynamic, addictive melodies. Face Your Fear features production by Harding, Sam Cohen, and Danger Mouse and was recorded in New York at Danger Mouse’s 30th Century Studio.

With *H.E.R.*, the singer and multi-instrumentalist of the same name, who declines to show her face or confirm her identity, has reconfigured the whole of her output into one long-playing album: *Vol. 1* and *2* are here, along with six previously unreleased tracks. *H.E.R.* is soulful and soul-baring R&B, with immaculate songwriting and soothing melodies. A delicate cover of Drake\'s \"Jungle\" wrings hope from defeat, but the lush arrangement of \"Rather Be\" reveals a penchant for the power ballad. Daniel Caesar has the album’s lone guest spot (“Best Part”), and, together with H.E.R., they deliver a duet in the image of Lauryn Hill and D’Angelo’s timeless “Nothing Even Matters.”

The sister act Chloe x Halle delight in the unexpected on their first mixtape. A sugar-high whirl through gossamer (and, sometimes, dizzyingly brief) tracks that foreground the pair’s bewitching harmonies, *The Two of Us* revels in stylistic shifts. They sing over a barebones beat on the bravado-filled “Too Much Sauce,” play temptress on the hypnotic “Poppy Flower,” and luxuriate in synth-pop splendor on “Tra Ta Ta.” Using the anything-goes mixtape ideal as a jumping-off point, Chloe x Halle explore R&B\'s new frontiers.

After investigating UK club culture on 2014’s *The London Sessions*, Mary J. Blige returns to hip-hop soul to process her broken marriage. Survivor’s spirit, regal horns, and a bravura verse from Kanye West combine on invigorating opener “Love Yourself,” while her F-you vocal outshines a supporting cast of Missy Elliott, DJ Khaled, and Migos’ Quavo on “Glow Up.” Turning pain into compelling music has long been Blige’s trademark, but her choice of inventive producers—particularly KAYTRANADA on “Telling the Truth”’s glitchy soul—keeps pushing her sound forward.

Loose-limbed percussion loops meet unhinged melodies on the Odd Future-affiliated producer\'s solo debut.