Love Songs for Grown Folks With Standards
Mary J. Blige won’t bargain, Johnny Venus won’t stop apologizing, LAYA flirts through GPS, PJ Morton won’t rush, and India Shawn plays no games.
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.
This week’s picks are all about people who know what they want and aren’t being cute about it. Mary J. Blige is two singles deep into her latest run with producer Camper, and “Want Love” is her at peak don’t-waste-my-time energy—calm, certain, not negotiating. Johnny Venus, the EarthGang rapper building a solo R&B catalog, goes the opposite direction on “I Want You Back,” a groveling, guitar-laced plea written for him by Baby Tate that might be the most desperate love song of the spring. LAYA turns a rideshare into a booty call metaphor on the sly, bouncy “LUber,” as this Staten Island kid raised on Destiny’s Child and 702. PJ Morton, fresh off his sixth Grammy and a new distribution deal, strips everything to the studs on “Mutual,” a reassurance song so patient it barely feels written. And India Shawn reunites with D’Mile for “Rain On Me,” a spoil-me anthem where the luxury and the desire bleed into each other until they’re the same thing.
Mary J. Blige, “Want Love”
Less than two months after dropping “More Than a Lover” on Valentine’s Day, Mary J. Blige is back with Camper, her longest-running production partner, for another single about being in love and refusing to settle for less. Blige and Camper have been locking in together since 2017’s “Thick of It,” and this latest stretch has the pair cooking on autopilot, the good kind, where the chemistry is muscle memory. “Want Love” sits in a warm, patient groove, and Blige rides it with the sureness of someone who has already lived through enough bad love to spot the real thing from across a room. She’s not chasing anybody, as she lays that out early:
“I’m too grown to play them kid games
‘Cause when it’s all said and done, I got me
I’m too focused.”
Blige wants committed, adult partnership, the kind where both parties are reading the same page and neither one flinches when it gets real. She’s offering herself as someone worth the effort (“I’m a good time on a rainy day, summertime, or a winter day”), but she’s not bargaining. If the other person’s happiness is wrapped in heartbreak, she’ll walk. While her voice is not what it once was, the nine-time Grammy winner has spent three decades singing about love in every possible condition (wrecked, mended, furious, tender, etc.) and “Want Love” lands in a place that’s temperate and uncompromising, a woman who has stopped negotiating with people who aren’t indispensable. — Terryl Jameson
Johnny Venus, “I Want You Back”
Baby Tate wrote this one for Johnny Venus, and it fits him congenitally. Venus is half of EarthGang, the Atlanta duo signed to Dreamville whose records have always bent toward funk, Southern psychedelia, and big conceptual swings. His solo material, starting with the Shooter EP and the 6LACK-featuring “So Beautiful,” drops almost all of that armor in favor of bare, risky R&B sung by a rapper who might actually cry. “I Want You Back” is a begging song. She caught him, packed his bags, and put them at the door, and now he’s on his knees fully aware that dignity left the building. The second verse ratchets up the hurt until it buckles under its own weight (“I look at our pictures and cry tears like funerals/I don’t know what to do no more/I feel like I used up all my sorrys.”). Dom Sanders’s production keeps the guitar warm and the drums easygoing, which only makes the desperation louder. Venus has said he wanted his solo work to show “the rough edges I have, the tenderness I protect.” On “I Want You Back,” the protecting part is over. — Imani Raven
LAYA, “LUber”
The conceit is an Uber, or a booty call donned up in rideshare language. LAYA, the Staten Island singer who spent the early pandemic years teaching herself videography and graphic design while building a catalog on Warner Records with the debut EP “R&B fans” slept in 2022, structures the whole song around pickups, ETAs, and GPS coordinates, and the metaphor is slippery enough to work on two levels without collapsing under its own cuteness. “When you’re ready to breeze, and you’ve had a few drinks, and your cab is buggin’, don’t budge it/When you’re feelin’ low-key, and the crib is too bleak, and you hit that button, I’m comin’.” The verses heap internal rhymes in threes and fours, packed tight, with a cadence pulled straight from the late-90s girl group playbook she grew up on (Destiny’s Child, 702, Aaliyah, all cited by name). She then flips from seductive to possessive. She already knows where you are, she doesn’t need the app to confirm it. “Can you wait all night long just to be with me?” sounds like a question, but LAYA sings it like she already has the answer. The production, from Chad Paul, Dante Carter, and Quincy Riley, bounces between a percussion-forward groove and a softer cushion on the pre-chorus, funky and minimal, with room for LAYA’s stacked harmonies to fill the gaps. — Jamila W.
PJ Morton, “Mutual”
A few weeks after winning his sixth Grammy and announcing a new distribution deal between Morton Records and SRG-ILS, PJ Morton put out a song about the simplest, rarest feeling in the world: two people falling at the same speed. “Mutual” doesn’t have a clever angle or a narrative twist. Morton senses the other person’s hesitation, names it gently, and offers reassurance—“You don’t have to be afraid/Whatever you’re feeling, I’m feeling the same way.” He sings it in a clear, mid-register voice without overselling a plosive, letting “mutual, baby” build its own warmth through sheer patience. Morton is the son of a bishop, the longtime keyboardist for Maroon 5, and the first Black composer to write an original song for a Disney theme park ride, but none of that extra context is necessary to hear what “Mutual” does. It’s a love song for the moment right before two people stop hedging and admit they’re antecedently together. — Phil
India Shawn, “Rain On Me”
India Shawn has been working with D’Mile for years now. The Oscar and Grammy-winning producer handled most of her 2022 debut Before We Go (Deeper) and her 2025 singles “Kill Switch,” Lucky Daye-featuring “Cotton Candy Blvd,” and the Outlaw-inspired “Gone.” Their partnership keeps yielding songs where Shawn sits completely at ease inside her own desire, and “Rain On Me” is the most direct version of that instinct. She wants to be spoiled, and she says so without apology: “Just keep loving me with a purpose/Spoil me ‘cause you know I’m worth it.” The Shawn who once wrote for Chris Brown and Monica and Keri Hilson behind the scenes, years of devising other people’s internal language, shows up here in the economy of the verses. “Keep me looking sharp like switched blade/Hand all on my thigh while we switch lanes” burns through two images in a single couplet, each one physical and precise. “Tropical water/This the kinda torment I could get used to” pushes the luxury and the intimacy into the same breath, indulgence and affection fused. Spencer Stewart co-produces alongside D’Mile, and together they give the track a breezy, assured feel, with just enough give in the beat for Shawn to lean into her phrasing. — Kendra Vale
R&B, Soul, or Blues Albums to Check Out
Thundercat: Distracted
Omah Lay: Clarity of Mind
Market East: French Street
JNBO: JNBO & Friends
Lekan: For All the Right Reasons, Vol. 1
Sean Leon & God’s ALGORITHM: GOD’S ALGORITHM_PATCH_001
Lubiana: Terre Rouge (Mother Earth)
TheARTI$T: DND (EP)
Kwncy: St Lucie Drive (EP)
Michael Francix & IX WULF: A.L.T.T.A (EP)
Sunny Miles: G2 (EP)
Ms. Thandi: Soft Like Fire (EP)
Other Songs to Check Out
Tank: Turtleneck
2BYG: Be Mine
Jacob Banks: Little Me
Guordan Banks: Hard Day’s Night
Allyn: Whatever You Say
Quail P: Wouldn’t Try Again
rjtheweirdo: At Least She’s Beautiful
Dave Hollister: Thought You Knew
Zae France & R&B ONLY: RAX (R&B ONLY SESSIONS)
OLA: EXCHANGE
Sonny Tennet: Cut In Half
Estelle: Live, Love, Learn
Arianna Marie: know dat (feat. Abby Jasmine)
Sal Ly: Off Days
Bōlají: break it down
Devon Gilfillian: IRL
Blue Lab Beats: Find Your Way (feat. Essosa) / Sunset and Memories (feat. Kaidi Akinnibi)
Lex Aura: Starfire
Sekou: Dangerous Lover
Guordan Banks: Hard Day’s Night
CHOSZN: The One That Got Away
REMI: Your Loss
MarcLo: Haze
Chxrry: Hall of Fame
Puma Blue: (Fool) / Sweet Belief / Fester
Brik.Liam: Whiiiplash!
Ragz Originale: Live at Round Chapel (Maxi-Single)
ADÉ & The Amours: still in LOVE
Tama Gucci: Lights Camera Action
Manny Norté: Can We Make It Real?
Taleen: Pure
Bobby V.: Go Girl
Marvin Gaye & Blonde Maze: Distant Lover (Blonde Maze Remix)
S!MONE: Do It
Jarrod Lawson: If We Pretend
LALA: Winners (feat. Marnz Malone)
KAMAUU & Coastyn: USTILLDERE
Zeke Pujols: Remind Me You Exist
Pat Williams: LANDMARKS (feat. Eric Ryan)
Josh Tenor: I Like What I Like
Bel Cobain: Change
Yo Trane: Do You Miss Me ?
Devin Donnell: SNOWBALL
Gemaine: Stuck With Me
DeCarlo: Paid My Dues
Tyler Watts: Check On Me
Echo Huang: YOKOYAMA
Akina Eman: Gravity
RM47, MAAD & Releigh: S.E.X.
Norah’s World: shake it up
Larissa Lambert: I Love You Out Loud