R&B Songs We Can’t Get Out of Our Heads
A British trio’s piano ballad fills a therapy prescription, while a Compton grandson finally writes the song his mother deserved.
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.
This week’s picks: a soulful piano confession from a British girl group chasing catharsis on the dance floor. One of electronic R&B’s most exacting architects delivering a wiry guitar manifesto. A veteran balladeer staring down temptation on both sides of Saturday. The Mother’s Day song that shouldn’t work but does. And a Fort Lauderdale falsetto making the case that nobody in R&B is giving the pillow-talk song enough reverence. We got into it.
FLO, “Therapy at the Club”
Before FLO’s voices even arrive, the piano has already done its job. Built around a single repeating chord progression that never resolves where you expect, the arrangement from Lostboy and Leroy Clampitt alongside Lauren “Amma” Keen gives FLO’s stacked three-part harmonies room to breathe in the gaps. Most piano-led R&B ballads in 2026 are drowning their singers in reverb and string pads, afraid of silence; “Therapy at the Club,” the title track from the British trio’s sophomore album (due July 24 on Republic), kills that instinct dead. Through the verses, Jorja and Renee and Stella trade the lead until the lines blur, and when they land together on “go run your mouth to a stranger ‘cause their arms feel safer/Than telling the man that you love he’s not enough,” the harmonies thin to near-solo before catching each other again. Given its weight by being almost unaccompanied, that second phrase changes the whole song. Girl-group records have always been about women holding each other steady when everyone else fumbles the job. This one knows it. Sneaky devastating. — Jamila W.
Kelela, “linknb”
A Three 6 Mafia that could belong on a mixtape opens “linknb” and plays the entire song without stopping. Oscar Scheller produced the track—Kelela’s second single from new avatar, her third album, out July 10 on Warp—and the drums underneath are metallic and heavy, closer to post-punk than anything she’s done before, or maybe closer to shoegaze--hard to place exactly. The sub-bass landscapes that made 2023’s Raven feel like it was recorded inside a submarine are gone. In their place: a coiling six-string figure and a beat that clangs. Kelela started the song during a stretch when she couldn’t write, and it sounds like one—the lyrics circle back on themselves, “Seed to a star/New avatar,” each pass adding force. The mantra origin bleeds into the structure. Lines loop, gain weight, refuse to land. Halfway through the second verse, “all I know is that I paved the way, underpaid”—the melody drops out of its register, drops to speech for a beat and a half, and the guitar drags it back. A labor complaint about the economics of being a Black woman building experimental music at pop’s edges, dropped into a dance track the way an overdue bill gets dropped into dinner conversation. — Phil
PJ Morton, “Sell My Soul”
PJ Morton plays keys for Maroon 5. Six Grammys. A Disney songwriting credit for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. He is also a New Orleans soul singer whose solo records operate on a completely different schedule, and his upcoming double album Saturday Night, Sunday Morning makes the split literal—R&B tracks and gospel tracks, divided by a comma and a conviction. “Sell My Soul” lives on the Saturday half. The piano and the organ underneath it could’ve come from Greater St. Stephen Baptist Church, where Morton’s father Bishop Paul Morton Sr. pastored for decades. The refusal—you can’t have control, I will never sell my soul—names no addressee. The industry, temptation, the devil. Morton never picks one. Then he breaks:
“I admit sometimes
It gets so rough
And I feel like I had enough.”
Four bars where the whole posture falls apart and the vocal wobbles. Fifteen years in a pop-rock arena band, a Disney ride, and the realest four bars Morton has put on tape all year are about being tired. — Imani Raven
Eric Bellinger, “Just Like You”
In 1958, Bobby Day sang “Rockin’ Robin.” His grandson Eric Bellinger, raised in Compton, co-wrote for Usher and Chris Brown before building a solo R&B catalog starting in 2014. “Just Like You” is a Mother’s Day song. Troy Oliver and Troy Taylor produced it—both quiet-storm architects—and the arrangement—not sure what else to call it—sits on brushed drums and a keyboard bed that sounds like somebody’s house on a Sunday. In the first verse the wedding ring stays on. Adversity goes unnamed. Bellinger sings about a woman who held her head up through whatever it was, never told him what it was, and quoted Philippians 4:13 enough that he eventually got it inked across his sternum.
“Told me I could do all things through Christ who strengthens me
Now it’s tatted on my chest.”
Second verse hands over a teaching method. “You taught me everything without sayin’ a word.” He’s been writing R&B since the early 2010s. Usher records. Chris Brown records. His own catalog starting in 2014. None of the catalog work prepares you for a Mother’s Day song with a sternum tattoo, a wedding ring she never took off, an adversity she never named, and a Compton address. — Randy
Kyle Dion, “Nature’s Perfume”
Anton Goransson, a Swedish beatmaker, produced “Nature’s Perfume” with Blake Straus. The synths underneath drip and pool, wet enough to feel humid. Over them, Goransson dropped a kick and snare so dry they could’ve been recorded in a closet, no reverb anywhere to soften the edges. Kyle Dion, the Fort Lauderdale singer who’s been working a breathy falsetto since SUGA in 2019 and through SASSY, If My Jeans Could Talk, and last year’s SOULAR, floats above the contrast. He opens: “Dripping nature’s perfume/Under pressure, babe/Lemme press you out.” Halfway through he sings “Perfect syncopation, no interludes,” and the song does exactly that. One pulse from bar one through bar last. No breakdown, no key change. Near the end Dion drops out of falsetto into a spoken register, asks his partner to undress, and the three minutes of held tension finally lets go. Ay dios mio. — F. Qureshi
R&B, Soul, or Blues Albums to Check Out
Mack Keane: Wide Eyed
Slowe: In Moments
Blue Lab Beats: The Blue Lab Beats Show
Navah Sea, Braxton Cook & Saxton Chef: What Do I Know Now?
Szymon Justyński: Last Romantic Warrior
Hil St. Soul: Nasilyfa
Brother Wallace: Electric Love
Token Honey: Token Honey
Matthew Stevens: Matthew Stevens
Stix Hooper: Cookin’ Up the Groove
Isaiah Kaleo: icymi (EP)
Tia Gordon: i asked the stars for this x (EP)
Toulouse: Blue On Blue (EP)
Jenevieve: CRYSALIS (CODA)
Janine: Pain and Paradise Deluxe
Chris Brown: BROWN (Optional)
Other Songs to Check Out
6LACK: Ashin the Blunt (feat. Young Thug)
Tank and the Bangas: Nighttime (feat. David Shaw & Austin Brown)
Tiffany: Treat Me Like a Princess (Even.biz Exclusive)
Karri: Charge It to the Game
Kevon Edmonds: No Ordinary Love
Aaron Frazer: It’s a Shame
ROE: Body
Yaya: That Girl
New Edition: Im Feeling You
Ojerime: 4ME
H3rizon: Certified Lover Girl
MALIA: Shallow
Lizzen, Vedo & Jacquees: Work It Out (Can We)
TA Thomas: You Got Your Wings
Sonny Tennet: Call Her Home
Teyana Taylor & Wale: Bed of Roses
IYAMAH: sehuli
Iris Aeria: lavender
Sean Gibbs & Frida Touray: Wounded Healers
Annie Tracy: Moment
Tamera: Undeniable (feat. Aitch)
reggie: 2b
HXRY: ALL THE WAY THROUGH
Jawan: Always On My Mind (feat. Sis) [Cover]
Rebel Rae: Baby We Made It
Amari Noelle: GOTTA KNOW
REMI: I Tried
Paradise & Sweata: Predictable (Remix)
Brenna Whitaker: Purple Rain
Tay Iwar: Say My Name
Kuzi Cee: Shot In the Dark
Nic Dean: Sirens
Khalil, Snooze God & Delia Li: So What
Naomi Sharon: Better Days
Flwr Chyld: Wrapped Around
Ambré: Laugh Later, Cry Now (feat. CARI)
Tasha: Spring (feat. Jamila Woods & L’Rain)
The Womack Sisters: Chauffeur
October London: Tik Tok Shop
Lu’: ESCAPE / Back Road Blues’
Qendresa: Rain in July / Be the One
Dreamer Isioma & The Celestials!: Life Isn’t Fair
Phil.: make it right / luv you all night
Mega Simone: Is This Empathy
Elujay: Bomo
95ANTNY: SLiDE
Cedric Brazle: mine.
Denisa Julia: CHANGES
JacQuar 937: TTM
SiMaya: when i’m mad
Coline Creuzot: Should’ve Thought About It
Jon Lampley, Lawrence & Louis Cato: Dock of the Bay
Eloise: How Lucky
NIKEE MUZE: care less
okay coleman!: Let Me Go
James Blake: Trying Times (A COLORS Show)
Dionne Warwick & John Legend: Where Is Your Heart
Che Ecru: 1:11
Chezile: Mr. Man (feat. Dominique Da Silva)
Carter Ace: phase 3.1*