Omarion, Ayra Starr, and Five R&B Singles Worth Your Weekend
New R&B from Ayra Starr, Omarion, Ama with Brent Faiyaz, Nia Smith tag-teams Destin Conrad, and Jalen Ngonda.
Welcome to the weekly Soulpolitan feature, in which we pick five new R&B records and write about what’s keeping us up at night. Omarion kicks off a reunion tour and releases a Maybach sex jam the same week, Ayra Starr puts an Afropop beat under the oldest unanswered question in casual dating, and Jalen Ngonda admits he probably meant “doctorate” instead of “doctrine” but recorded the song anyway. Ama and Brent Faiyaz trade verses on a late-night duet where nobody trusts anybody, and Nia Smith enlists Destin Conrad to tell a man he can stop pretending to be fine.
Ayra Starr, “Where Do We Go”
Between her Glastonbury debut last summer, a Grammy nomination for “Gimme Dat,” and “Rush” crossing 500 million Spotify plays, Ayra Starr spent 2025 stacking accomplishments that most Afrobeats artists twice her age haven’t touched. She’s 22, signed to Don Jazzy’s Mavin Records with an exclusive Republic pipeline to the American market, and she opens 2026 with a question she can’t get a straight answer to. “Where Do We Go” splits its weight between swagger and disappointment. The first verse parks the Mercedes, keeps the visits secret from friends, stays after hours. Ayra barks the pre-chorus like she’s running point on a dare: “Spin the block, can I give this a try?” But that confidence drops clean off by the time she hits “You lead me on, then I follow you blind.” ILYA’s production holds the beat stiff and danceable, snapping along while the lyrics admit that this situationship has been circling the same block for months. Starr doesn’t beg, just clocks the situation and moves. The second verse flips pronouns, “I come and see you Park the Mercedes,” and that switch pins the blame to both sides equally. Nobody’s parking permanently, but nobody’s said goodbye either. — Ameenah Laquita
Omarion, “Fantasy”
The Boys 4 Life Tour launches tonight (at the time of this writing) in Louisville with B2K and Bow Wow co-headlining 28 cities, and the timing of “Fantasy” landing the same week tells you everything about the commercial math behind this single. Omarion slots it into the press cycle while the reunion has his name in every entertainment outlet printing nostalgia stories about the Scream Tour II era, Y2K fashion, and whether Lil Fizz has earned forgiveness yet. Shrewd scheduling. The song itself borrows heavily enough from Keyshia Cole that social media has already clocked the interpolation. The hook is Omarion doing what Omarion has always done: mid-tempo sex records with expensive car references and choreography-ready ( “Got the Maybach going bouncy/Have you getting nasty in the back seat”).
The man can still sing, and his phrasing stays loose where a lesser vocalist would stiffen up trying to compete with his own twenty-year catalog. He squeezes “masters in sexology” into a line without stumbling over the syllable count, which is a minor achievement on its own. But “Fantasy” also asks very little of itself. The writing coasts on mood alone, piling alignment-and-assignment bars that feel written for an Instagram caption more than a full listen. For a 41-year-old man launching a new solo album called O2, a track this comfortable doesn’t tell you much about where he plans to go next. It tells you where he’s always been. — Jamila W.
Ama, “Need It Bad” feat. Brent Faiyaz
After a quiet two-year stretch away from Interscope, Ama (formerly Ama Lou) signed to her friend Brent Faiyaz’s ISO Supremacy label last year. The friendship dates to 2019. The London-born singer, who’d already drawn co-signs from Drake and Virgil Abloh before she’d released a full project, relocated to the States, and this single, produced by Mannyvelli and Spizledoe, marks her most direct bid for radio-adjacent R&B since the label switch.
Faiyaz takes the first verse and does exactly what you’d expect: unhurried, murmuring about spending the night and making breakfast, his voice floating just behind the beat. He’s perfected this register so thoroughly that it barely registers as a performance anymore. He just occupies the frequency. Ama’s verse, arriving second, cracks the song open. “I’m skeptical, what you want with me, boy?” reroutes a song that had been drifting toward another late-night surrender. She agrees to the terms, “Don’t let nobody know and I’ll let you roll by,” but she names the conditions first. Where Faiyaz’s half glides on assumption, Ama’s half demands a receipt. “Fuck me with the lights on till I can’t see/What I want, it’s morning/I didn’t expect to still be moaning” concedes the physical reality without surrendering the upper hand. The two voices don’t blend so much as they negotiate, and the song is better for keeping the gap visible. — Jill Wannasa
Nia Smith, “Tough” feat. Destin Conrad
A Brixton singer whose debut single “Give Up the Fear” turned heads last year and a Destin Conrad feature credit would’ve been enough context for most new-release round-ups to paste together a blurb. But “Tough” deserves a closer look because it does something unusual with its central complaint: it asks a man to stop being brave. The lyrics address a partner whose pride runs so deep that vulnerability gets buried under composure. “Saying you’re okay, I know that lie/I know that you stay faithful to your pride” lands early in the first verse, and Smith’s alto, warm and gently skeptical, doesn’t plead so much as take inventory. She can see the tension, she knows he won’t name it, and she’s asking him to try. Conrad’s verse complicates things by flipping the confession: “I know I’m the worst, I don’t make sense And loving me is so complicated.” Conrad turns out to be the messy one admitting he might be the reason the other person had to build the wall in the first place. That reversal gives the song two arguments happening at once, one asking a man to soften and the other admitting he might have good reason to stay guarded. — Kendra Vale
Jalen Ngonda, “Doctrine of Love”
Most Daptone artists won’t admit they wrote a song just to get out of the studio, but Jalen Ngonda told Consequence of Sound exactly that. He’d been listening to a lot of James Brown, and “Doctrine of Love” came from that restlessness. He also admitted “doctrine” might’ve been the wrong word. He probably meant “doctorate.” But they’d already recorded it, so the title stuck. That kind of honesty about his own process feels rare from a 20-something Daptone signee whose entire aesthetic depends on treating 1964 Detroit like a holy site. It plays like a graduation ceremony for romantic veterans. “You had to pay the price, make the sacrifice” measures the cost of staying in love, and the “step right up, come and get your proper’s” call-and-response section lifts directly from tent-revival stagecraft.
Ngonda’s voice, a falsetto that can rasp and belt in the same phrase, carries the conceit without winking at it, bearing down on every note. The verses list qualifications: ecstasy with misery, ups and downs, lonely walls and late-night DJ calls. The Washington, D.C.-raised, London-based singer recorded this with Daptone producers Vince Chiarito and Michael Buckley at sessions split between Brooklyn and Riverside, California, the same team behind his 2023 debut Come Around and Love Me. That album’s breakout single “If You Don’t Want My Love” crossed 253 million streams, and this second record, due June 5, expands into 1950s New Orleans R&B and girl-group pop alongside the early-‘70s soul foundation. “Doctrine of Love” doesn’t try to modernize the form. It earns its conviction by taking the oldest subject on earth—love that costs you something—and dressing it in a James Brown suit without ever pretending the suit is ironic. — Tai Lawson
R&B, Soul, or Blues Albums Released This Week to Check Out
Gnarls Barkley: Atlanta
Daniela Andrade: Oda
ELIZA: The Darkening Green
Pimmie: Don’t Come Home
Rashad: I Was Told There’d Be Gold
Giddy Gang & Viyo: After All
Malted Milk: Time Out
Arima Ederra: A Rush to Nowehere
DJ DMG & October London: Midnight in Houston
Swavy: FOR THE GIRLIES
waterbaby: Memory Be a Blade
Alvin Garrett: Talk to Her Like This
Rick Braun: Rick Braun Plays Chuck Mangione
GeeJay: Who Have I Become?
Brian Jackson: EP Two
Ty Dolla $ign: Girl Music Vol. 1 (EP)
Jeremih: N.O.M.A (EP)
Karun & Bigfootinyourface: Eternal (EP)
Alicia Creti: MINDFIELDS (EP)
A.R.T: Blank Canvas (EP)
Other R&B Songs to Check Out
Jorja Smith: Blue Lights (Havoc Remix)
Omarion: Fantasy
Storm Ford: F.O.O.L
Gabriela Rosario: Party
Gio Genesis: Loveless (Maxi-Single)
Joy Postell: With Yew
Olivia Escuyos: No Revenge
Ama Louise: Inside Out
んoon: OTODO
Bobby V.: International Love
Jeremih & Kevin Gates: Stroke U Up
Mack Keane: Frontin’ (Spotify Singles)
Isaia Huron: Desire (Spotify Singles)
Sam Akpro & TYSON: Wayside
Lei Dominique: Over Again
Heartbreak Alumni: THEY
DRAM: THE WAY
Isaiah Falls: TABOO
DaniLeigh: G.O.D.
Deliverie: Settle
Lost Girl: Romeo
Is0kenny: Play Bout You
Joya Mooi & Lady Donli: Only Water
We the Band: 911
OSA: Mona Lisa Who?
Richard Saunders: Peace of Mind
AYLØ, Le Mav & Naya Akanji: Second Thoughts
Viuta: She Worships Saturn
MyGuyMars & Lorea: SAFE WITH YOU
Inayah: Choose (Acoustic)
Delishia J: Kryptonize
Andrea Valle: Passionate
Wesley Joseph: Pluto Baby
Adanna Duru: Nothing to Say
T.K. Soul: Just in Case (feat. Sir Charles Jones)
Tym: Is the Light Still On
BombayMami: Gulabi Mantra
Jalisa Rey & LONGLIVECZAR: Good Time (Rap Version)
MILIANO: FRYING ME UP
Jonathan Plevyak: Are You My Lady
Sonny Miles: As Long as I’m With You
Lex Aura: 1942
Chocc: Codi
Mako Girls: Chasing a Dream
Angelique Kidjo: Fall On Me (feat. PJ Morton)
Njerae: Ingia Ndani
Tay Iwar: Sweet Persuasion
Wax Motif & Jozzy: What U Want
Avara: Winston Street
MALIA: Masquerade
THEHONESTGUY: NEVER BE THE SAME (feat. Lizzie Berchie)
Ye Ali: Come Through (feat. 11:11)
JOIE GREY: VIOLET interval (Maxi-Single)
Jupiter Grey: The Arcade
Quincy Isaiah: Walk Away
Jasmine Kiara: Attached