The Laziest Apology in R&B Is a Haiku
Summer situationship ultimatums, 1 a.m. rescue missions, and a courtship strategy with a syllable count.
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, we’ve got summer-situationship ultimatums from the queen of R&B’s perfectionism, a UK girl’s night rescue operation, a love song about proximity, modern R&B’s laziest apology, and a self-produced burst of glee from a Brooklyn prodigy. Let’s get it!
Victoria Monét, “Reach Out”
When a situationship has been thriving on summer reruns for this many seasons, eventually someone’s got to deliver the script into a mic. Victoria Monét is the one that time—on “Reach Out” she launches into establishing the terms of the deal: “You live your life/And I am living mine.” She’s not bothered by the geographical divergence. What she can’t deal with is the lack of communication. This man imagines their worlds flooding together (we know, she knows), and he still refuses to call first. I forever wanna be your lover she offers, and then she clarifies she’s sick of waiting forever for him to think so. My jaw inched closer to the floor when I saw the credits. D’Mile, the architect behind Jaguar II, and KAYTRANADA, the king of the sweatiest nights of my adult life, worked on this together. Even the almost-touching-before-over-the-edge is accounted for, with Monét echoing her own anticipation “Its a rhythm, it’s a feelin’ you can’t deny/When you know that you’re supposed to be mine.” And then there’s the Dave Meyers video where she leads a legion of dancers through Sean Bankhead’s moves in pitch black, a one-woman deputization effort aimed squarely at one poor guy’s last nerve. I’ve been trying to replicate the moves in front of my bathroom mirror all week. If my own summer-of-me person happens to be reading this, you know what to do. —Jamila W.
FLO, “Remedied”
Perhaps one of the more brutally authentic brand deals of this, this song emerged in the form of a Liquid I.V. ad, the natural Hangover Co-Pilot to a night exactly like the one FLO sings about in “Remedied.” Jorja, Renée, and Stella trade lines to paint the picture, and the picture is dark. Someone’s been crying yourself to sleep while you keep your head downward when the phone rings at around 1 a.m. and the response to the beckonings is the best line I’ve heard in a pop tune this month: “It’s not yes, but it’s not no.” From that point we take the whooooooole crew on the seven-seater, the dress just back from the dry cleaners, the bottle chilling in the freezer, and the “Chasing that good medicine in the melody” refrain. (One line is her checking her face out in the toilet before it’s time for the DJ to hit all seven cylinders, and I can’t help but respect that almost as much as Jorja getting winded and caveman-groaning, “Oh God, I’m fuckin’ sweatin’ after the dancing has taken its course.”) Co-composer Amy Allen, a pop scribe as a day job, wrote the song alongside the group, and three writers are responsible for the accompaniment, Jayme Silverstein, Oak, and Oscar Linnander. The song, marketed to the weary, claims to be meant to address “that moment when you finally get up, get out, and remember who you are,” but my favorite statement about the intent outside an interview is so brutally succinct: “We be loving on the Grey Goose and not men.” As therapy, it’s far cheaper than my copay. —Charlotte Rochel
Q, “I wish you were here”
The producer-multi-instrumentalist eking out homespun soul in South Florida with the most incongruous stage name in pop—a situation so difficult that even Complex once ran an article centered on his obscurity. Q Marsden has managed to stay that way since Forest Green and The Shave Experiment, cementing him as a cult artist, and to appear again under the radar with 2023’s Soul,PRESENT, and last year’s 10 Songs mixtape. His latest track—co-written with Jacob Olofsson and former BROCKHAMPTON production-terror Romil Hemnani—relies on a paradox he proclaims straight at the song’s beginning: “I wish you were here/Even though you’re right there.” The room he describes couldn’t sound any more pleasing on paper. She rubs his shoulders, then he gives up the chance of a full-on passionate night: “I think I always want the stars but tonight it’s okay/Put your hands on my shoulders” he sings, only to make less attractive confessions. He asks her to stay as he slams his door shut. Until the final chorus pronoun has shifted again from “you” to “she” and an entire scene played out from the empty side of the bed with the woman in question sitting two feet away. —Phil
Fridayy, “Haiku”
But how much can a kid dump into a diplomatic apology before it’s still an apology? Friday, the Philadelphia singer whose voice you already recognize from the mountaintop hook of DJ Khaled’s “God Did,” has found the absolute least on “Haiku,” that declares his love to his girl in a 17-word text: “Five seven five, send my girl a haiku.” He knows exactly what he’s doing. “You said I been nonchalant, that’s true,” he confesses, hours before he promises to keep the remaining words sealed in his lips unless they are clearly justified. But she is up on the hook mocking him from across town (“Too thick, too fine, he want me/Too bad, I’m outside”) while he blows up her cell, and her dirtiest cut-down came early in the set: “Two fingers, who been teachin’ you sign language?” There’s a proud R&B begging tradition on trial here.
Keith Sweat built a whole career on it, and Jodeci did it shirtless in the rain.This patrician is counting syllables. But, I was amused by how utterly he is defeated by the reality of the situation. He claims he is fried. Then he reverses her slap by flipping her own taunt back, singing her hook in reverse, pronouns and all. He and producer Hossy Mombru and Xander are all (their names are in the credits to last year’s Some Days I’m Good, Some Days I’m Not) co-producers for this track, just so no one knows who to lay the blame on. If my girl ever aired me out this thoroughly on her own chorus, I hope I’d respond this gracefully. —Asa McKenzie
Laila!, “Anything Could Happen”
The last time I felt like 1995, it actually was 1995, so having someone sing “we never be this young again” should probably not have made me feel like I’d been hit by a truck in the middle of an ordinary Monday. And still, “Anything Could Happen,” the next outing from Laila!. The 20-year-old Brooklyn artist and producer who finished Gap Year! essentially alone in her bedroom, whose opening slot for Kali Uchis happened this spring, and who just launched her second phase last month with “Miss Mango.” As always, she did this one entirely by herself, lighting a spark of fresh infatuation pushing a freeway traffic jam. She’s leaning back on a cushions in a city she’s never seen, teeth pressing the middle of her lover’s mouth, telling us, “I was waiting to exhale,” just before the line I cannot release: “You make me feel like 1995/I ain’t never felt so alive.” What hits me in the gut next knocked me senseless. “For a girl that used to wanna die,: she adds, then cuts us off a second later, singing, “But let’s not go there/No one wants to hear that,: acknowledging the darkness but swiftly overriding it. Her joy outpaces her fear always, even as she sings, “We live in a world where everything’s collapsing.” We finally arrive at having the listener said to him or herself: “Anything could happen, just get up and dance/You don’t have to die.” Nearly around “It’s a relay race not a relapse,” I finally unlocked my age difference and fully believed her. —Esther Blake
R&B, Soul, or Blues Albums to Check Out
Nick Hakim: I Can See
Kenyon Dixon: Ego Ruins Everything
Felix Ames: Did the Rain Stop?
DAMEDAME*: DREAMS ON THE PASSENGER SEAT
Adanna Duru: THE NAIJAMERICAN DREAM
Bootsy Collins & Buckethead: Metal Health
Chenayder: Outdated
REMI: Fade to Blue (EP)
Denise Julia: LOVE AGAIN (EP)
Leah Writes: Soul Therapy (EP)
THEHONESTGUY: DON’T DISTURB THE GROOVE: AFROSOUL (EP)
Osé: Feels Like Home (EP)
Tee Valentine: VALLY $UMMER (EP)
pastels: Pastels World (EP)
Ruby Wood: No Rain, No Flowers (EP)
Ye Ali: interludes (EP)
Point 5ve: Take a Look at Me Now (EP)
Other Songs to Check Out
Chaka Khan: Through the Fire (A COLORS Show)
Lucky Daye: Nowhere Fast (Hunny Bee Remix)
threetwenty: Could It Be Love
Isaia Huron: no way!
Sy’Rai: Bullseye (Nice Shot)
JHart: BBY BLUE
CamRus: Human Nature
where.t.at: she goes by. Diamond (feat. Derrick Milano & Rojas On the Beat)
LATENIGHTJIGGY: Generational Link Up
Genia: Can’t Wait
Abby Jasmine: 1942
OVI WOOD: TOP TIER
Joy Oladokun: Kind
Dinner Party: Peace of Mind
cortex: You’re Mine I Swear
Bobby V: KiSS
Mayer Hawthorne: Ice Water
SunandMoon, Ogi & Anoop: In the Movies
MOONGA K.: TIME TRAVELLIN’ LOVER
CUBE: Ego Death
VITA: PLEASER
Lila Iké: What It Feels Like (feat. Protoje)
Joël Lobban: QLV
Jazlyn Martin & Jean Deaux: Girls Girl
Gotts Street Park & Celeste: Easy
Medhanit: etsy spells (feat. thatboykwame)
54 Ultra: Tell Me
Misha, Relyae & Jussi Halme: Skyline
JEDSOUL: FANTASY
ALA.NI & Adrian Younge: Proud of Me
Phil., King Noli & WESTSIDE BOOGIE: bb girl yes i do
Intalekt & Shae Universe: IT’S OKAY
the della kit & Junia-T: Goodness
Ariel: CENTREFOLD
Ruth B.: Best Days
Iris Aeria: noodles n steak
luvblue: excuse me
Reuben Aziz: promised land [reimagined
Marie Dahlstrom: Night & Day
Ama Louise: Hindsight (GA Edition)
Children of Zeus & Anieszka: Water & Vibes
Michael Duke: More Than a Vision
Kali Claire & Boj: Enemies Cry
Devin Donnell: HONEY BROWN
Nolais: man up
HARUNA & Saïna: Summer Kind of Love
Chrissi: THE SCARIEST PART !
Ajia & Natra Average: L Shape
NateTaylorr: mutuals
Andrea Valle: 4 the streets
Maurice Moore: Alaska
ReleastK: Dream Girl