Kehlani, Durand Bernarr, and Three More R&B Songs You Need Right Now
From Kehlani’s birthday-weekend slow burn to Dani Offline’s Oakland jazz-soul daydream, the week’s best R&B refuses to sit still.
Welcome to the Soulpolitan weekly feature, where we highlight the R&B singles worth your time. As people who spend an unreasonable amount of time pressing play on things nobody asked us to press play on, this is our way of passing along the best of what we’re hearing—and occasionally arguing about, so you don’t have to sort through every New Music Friday playlist yourself. Some weeks the list assembles itself around a theme. This week it did that without our help.
Kehlani dropped her self-titled fifth album on her 31st birthday this week, and the deep cut “Ooh,” co-written by Keri Hilson and Tank, is one of the best things on it. Durand Bernarr, fresh off his Grammy win for BLOOM, released “AM I OKAY?!” and traded every costume and punchline for a question he keeps asking without ever getting an answer. Jai’Len Josey, the songwriter who co-wrote Ari Lennox’s “Pressure,” closed her own debut album, Serial Romantic, with the only track she produced by herself. Isaiah Falls abandoned the Florida bass-culture collision that made him and went full slow jam. And Dani Offline, the Oakland poet-producer who studied comparative literature at UC Berkeley, dropped “Angel,” a love song that borrows its imagery from the Book of Revelation.
Kehlani, “Oooh”
Keri Hilson and Tank wrote on this, and the melodic phrasing curls the way mid-2000s R&B used to, when a slow jam could ride one syllable for a full four bars. “Oooh” arrives deep into Kehlani, the self-titled fifth album she dropped on her 31st birthday, well past the Brandy duet and the Lil Wayne feature and the Missy Elliott link-up. All those collaborations could swallow a lesser singer, but “Oooh” clears the room: Kehlani, Antonio Dixon and Khris Riddick-Tynes’s guitar-threaded production, and a lyric built entirely around a single word substituting for every act she wants performed. “Open up that window/‘Cause I feel so ooh/I don’t care about the neighbors/Let ‘em hear us, ooh,” she sings, swapping the explicit for the suggestive and landing somewhere dirtier than either. Kehlani told Vibe she wanted this record to prove that good R&B is genius and deserves respect without modification. On “Oooh,” the talking point evaporates and the proof starts humming in your molars. — Osei Addae
Durand Bernarr, “AM I OKAY?!”
Durand Bernarr has built his career on helping you forget that you are watching a performance. He pays tribute to The Proud Family in the Tiny Desk series, he opened up his Erykah Badu-backed mixtape called 8ight: The Stepson of Erykah Badu, and he gives shout-outs to Rick James and Kirk Franklin in interviews; whenever he performs or talks about performing, he always uses theatricality at full throttle. “AM I OKAY?!” takes the air out of the house. The second single from Durand’s self-titled fourth album. BERNARR. (named after his father, Bernarr Ferebee Senior), the opening line does not resemble a punchline.
“For a small piece of your time, I’ll pay a fee
Just to sit here on this couch and bare my soul.”
Jahi Sundance and Donnie Scantz’s production hums low and warm underneath him, never rushing toward resolution. Bernarr has searched high and low yet found nothing. The choruses ask the same question over and over eight times with not one response to be had, eventually walking the line from being defiant to saying, “Might just figure it out, wanna figure it out/Could you figure it out with me?” Yes, Miguel (who also did backgrounds) and Sevyn Streeter were among the songwriters on the track and their influence comes from the balance of swagger and collapse; two writers who have spent years developing that distance between confidence and pleading. Bernarr received the Grammy award for Best Progressive R&B Album at time of this release; “AM I OKAY?!” has a vibe of a morning after the awards show. — Jamila W.
Jai’Len Josey, “I Believe (Selfish)”
Tricky Stewart executive-produced Serial Romantic, and The-Dream, Leon Thomas, and Noah Ehler were producers on its 1st 12 tracks. Jai’Len Josey sat with herself alone on the 13th and produced it herself as a statement, like the lyrics: “I could give you the moon/I could even bring the stars down, too, but how silly would I be if I had none left for me?” There is purpose behind extending this line; through stacking the giving, Josey can make the turn hit. She was raised in Atlanta, went to Tri-Cities High School—the same performing arts high school that has provided talent to Atlanta’s Music and Stage/Film industry for many decades—and played the role of Pearl in *The SpongeBob Musical* on Broadway before returning to songwriting. She co-penned Ari Lennox’s gold-selling single “Pressure,” telling SHIFTER that she knocked out the demo in 30 minutes after Lennox called her at 2 in the morning with Jermaine Dupri on turntables and Bryan-Michael Cox sitting at the piano. She can write fast for other artists; “I Believe (Selfish)” is what happens when she has sat with her own material long enough to mean it. Originally, the title “Selfish” was changed to reflect how the original box of each person was no longer the complete love they’ve given to others; it had become an ever-evolving outpouring of love that should now return (with the understanding) to each individual. — Imani Raven
Isaiah Falls, “Back in My Arms”
The percussion element of “Back in My Arms” does not exist. This tune is produced solely with layered keyboard chords to support an acoustic richness, achieved through the collaborative efforts of Benson Bazilme, Gabriel Blizman, and Isaiah Falls himself. The singing also includes an element of falsetto. Every instrument (including the vocals) creates ambient sound; therefore, listeners may miss the fact that the lyrics incorporate a plea. Having grown up in Orlando, Florida, where he participated in church choirs and listened to trunk, waist-rattling hip-hop music (his father played drums, while his mother sang), Isaiah’s single, “FLORIDA BABY,” accumulated 27 million streams on Spotify during the 2024 period through the assistance of TikTok users sharing the song on that platform by creating a musical based on the hybrid between the culture of hip-hop and the sensual nature of R&B created from the same area. The composition of “Back In My Arms” does not showcase these two genres at all. “We deserve another chance/Faith can’t be taught” is repeated so that it becomes somewhat ambiguous until a member of the faith-based background determines that the lyric does make sense except that the lyrics do apply only to faith-based writers. These last two statements indicate the meaning of the song “Back In My Arms” is conveyed by the faith of someone who prays. — Tabia N. Mullings
Dani Offline, “Angel”
Dani Offline derived her stage name from an Instagram handle, which was rejected in 2020, where her previous page was removed due to a deletion (the last name offline). Dani Offline grew up with and without access to the internet, which enabled her to have access to how a computer can create content, but this desire was present after her departure from Birmingham, AL to pursue an education at UC Berkeley, through a graduate program that studied comparative literature, which is where Dani Offline became increasingly familiarized with jazz via listening to NPR as well as through her parents buying compact discs (that were chosen based upon hot women being pictured on them) who would participate in this act. “Angel” is Dani’s first single from her debut LP (Lover’s Discourse, named after Roland Barthes’s text that describes how lovers have borrowed from different cultures their methods by which they create love), which begins with a theological concept opposed to erotic notions:
“My man, my man calls me an angel
He says, he says I’m divine in disguise
Reality’s chasing me so I got to be careful
‘Cause he can’t, he can’t see my seven eyes.”
The 7 eyes of the heavenly beings, as detailed in the Book of Revelation, i.e., Seraphim of God, are 7 heavenly beings—seraphim—who surround God, and each seraph has an infinite number of eyes surrounding them. Dani said during an interview with onewritemusic that she thinks of herself primarily as a writer, and that the way she writes her songs is by writing out the verse first, before composing the music. The lyric arrived before the chords, and the melody Offline, Omari Jazz Addae, and Will Henley-Dias shaped underneath it drifts the way weather forms over a fixed point, jazz-soul that swells while the words hold still. The whole song pivots on one couplet: “I wanna be cool when I’m next to you, but I’m hot to the touch/I wanna be sweet when you think of me, something soft you can hold.” Love as a thermal problem. — Brandon O’Sullivan
R&B, Soul, or Blues Albums to Check Out
Kehlani: Kehlani
Lolo Zouaï: Reverie
Gareth Donkin: Extraordinary
Jai’Len Josey: Serial Romantic
Angélique Kidjo: HOPE!!
Eboni Riley: Beautiful Tragedy
April + VISTA: Traditional Noise
Liam Bailey: Shadow Town
Esa Williams: Dala What We Must
Norah Jane & MOR.LOV: Godspeed
VINSON: Raw Honey
Tom Funk: What’s It Gonna Be?
Adam Hawley: Electric
Dianne Reeves: Star Child
Jordan Rakei: Between Us (EP)
Yuna: The Valour Hour (EP)
Miyah: Miyah (EP)
ADÉ: Always Love (EP)
Joya Mooi: All the Things (EP)
Molly Johnson: Long Time Running (EP)
Bel Cobain: Kizzy (EP)
• • • LEÁ THE LEOX: FatalAttraction (EP
Other Songs to Check Out
Prince: With This Tear
Omarion: The One
Tank & the Bangas: No Invite
Jamilah Barry: All My Love
Girlfriend & Jaymin: All U Need
FOLA: Fine $hit
Limage: Dig Me
Candice Le: Catch a Flight
Adrian Marcel: Run It Back (feat. Sonny B.)
BENNI: STAYED UP
Wax Motif, Maeta: You Forget (feat. Maeta)
Luh Kel: Grinding
I Am Roze: Where the Wind Blows
Paradise: Predictable
Brianna Castro: rolling stone
Drea Dominique: Lue Viton
Renee Harmoni: Single for Life
Otis Kane: Heaven
Misha: Ordinary Low (feat. Jessica Jolia)
Infinity Song: One Foot Out
Gabrielle Lovelace: No Pay
Bri Babineaux: Grace
Kennedy Ryon: Favorite
Genia: Doomsday
THEHONESTGUY: SUGAR WATER
Bella Alubo: Abo Le (How are you)
TA Thomas: I Found You
FEYI: Have You Ever
Viuta: Eyes Are Everything
OVI WOOD: 365
Byron Juane: I Hate Luving U
cinquemani: Cosmic Connection
Janine: Reset
Aaron Taylor: Reach Heaven
Adanna Duru: I’m Every Woman
Zeddy Will & Janelle Monáe: Party at the Beach
Q Parker & Jai Vaughn: Get Better
Sophia Galaté: Please Don’t Talk to Me (R&B ONLY SESSIONS)
Breez Kennedy: Taste
NOTEP: Radio
Sipprell: Conversation
KELS: Daddy’s Not the One
Tyree Thomas: Most Days
nomi.: sweet talk
spaceluvrrr: TYM
PAGEFOURR: Something Different
Domenic Haynes: C’EST LA VIE
Anaïs Cardot: Second Hand
Vitua: Eyes Are Everything
cikho: Fell Again / Stranger What’s Your Name?
Taylor Williams: For the First Time
fika & Eddy Luna: Cyandide
Stefan Mahendra: Home Sweet Home
8RO8 & Karri: Sarah
twiin.: all
Malaya: Figure it out
Saburnia: April Shower
SALOMEA: sandcastle
Keenan TreVon: She Goes By Denver
Mikhalé Jones: Morals (feat. Kashept)
NEVRMIND: Eyes on You
❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥