The True R&B Songs of the Summer in 2026
Thirty R&B songs got played to death around here between May and July. As a sequel to last year’s column, do not let anybody tell you that there are no R&B jams that were released during the summer.
As with Syd to Parris Goebel, the phones were ringing. From the start of May until the end of July, thirty songs cycled during our rotation. In nearly every one, someone waits for the answer in silence. Five out of thirty were produced by the same person. D’Mile produced songs for Alex Isley, India Shawn, Lucky Daye, Sevyn Streeter, and split credits with KAYTRANADA for Victoria Monét. That is a sixth of the season made through the hands of R&B’s MVP. None of the five songs use the same rhythmic or melodic approach.
Jamaica’s influence feels like 2003 all over again. We’re seeing a wave of R&B artists reconnecting with Jamaican roots. Destin Conrad released a dancehall single and declared he was working on a reggae album next. Masego invited Buju Banton for a dancehall party starter. Nia Smith represents Brixton over an Albin Tengblad and The Runners backdrop, and Rio Sterling sings an airport goodbye over reggae production.
And the veterans of R&B haven’t lost a step. Mýa keeps her streak alive of consistency with Retrospect, her first album in nine years. B2K made their long-awaited return, announcing the single after the Pretty Ricky VERZUZ battle. Beyoncé’s leaked “MORNING DEW (DONK)” officially received a surprise Independence Day release. Babyface wrote a duet for Kehlani and Usher that feels nostalgic for 1997 (the same year Sevyn Streeter references in her song title).
Full disclosure: Phil is tight that Nippa’s “Homegrown” didn’t make the cut.
Sevyn Streeter, “97”
In a parked Chevy Camaro, Sevyn heard “Yeah 3X” on the radio. The first time she heard her pen in someone’s song. She discussed with V Magazine that the shock had rearranged her songwriting approach. Fifteen years later, Sevyn Streeter is one of the most reliable pens in the R&B industry. With a platinum single (“It Won’t Stop”) and a solo career that never went further than writing did. Largely due to inconsistent material. “I know I’m not supposed to/But I threw that out the door,” she says, a woman skipping her own rules and fully aware of them. The request becomes quite honest about itself: “Let’s be in love ‘least for tonight.” D’Mile is no stranger to working with Sevyn. He made “Come On Over” for her debut EP and “Taboo” for her second album, which is her best song to date. This one harkens back to nostalgia that’s upbeat with beautiful Rhodes chords. Just one night of the feeling, asked directly and without any bankrolling. She asked for everything she wanted and nothing more. —Phil
Alex Isley, “Alone”
As the daughter of Ernie Isley, Alex Isley started classical training at age twelve and self-released her EPs for fourteen years before signing with a major label. When the City Sleeps came out, the silky voice on it was in no hurry whatsoever. “Alone” is one of the two songs produced by D’Mile on the record. The track opens on taste: “Memories on my tongue/Tasting what we done.” Then comes the strangest item she ever placed in a love song—a hairbrush thrown down in the middle of the list between touch and eruption. The setting is a crowded room that she cannot leave fast enough. “With you in this full room isn’t enough,” she says, and offers to move mountains or cancel her plans for getting out of the room. You would think KAYTRANADA has a co-assistant here. But Dernst Emile comes through with a vintage enclosed groove for Alex before turning into a spacious dance vibe during the hook and a remarkable breakdown at the end. —Brandon O’Sullivan
Leven Kali, “BREATHE!”
Nobody else touched this one. Drums, guitar and keys are all from Leven Kali (with the help of Sol Was). If Michael and Prince came together, it would be this song. The seduction on the uptempo and groovy “BREATHE!” has a pickup time tag: “Let’s finish what we started, babe/Look where we are/We’ll take another shot, babe/I called a car.” Everything around that line is coaching, gentle coaching, the kind that you give someone whose shoulders are up above his ears since Tuesday. Leven’s bass and guitar work feels addicting and lively. A parrot shows up in the video with no explanation attached. The car is already waiting. —B
Syd, “Callin” feat. Blu June
The title of Syd’s third solo album was taken from her face. She shared a press statement with us that Beard was named for the peach fuzz on her upper lip that she has been taught to hate but decided to love. The album is made of that transformation. “Callin” has Raphael Saadiq playing a funky bassline on it, and Blu June, one half of Nova Wav, sings the hook. The setup is obvious: “I don’t really be out on the scene/Sittin’ in the section all night, that shit ain’t for me.” Then the proof appears, and proof is the color of a text message: “I know you got my messages ‘cause they ain’t turnin’ green.” Delivered. Read. Nothing. Blu June makes an emergency call that nobody dispatches, and Syd, calm and collected, is making plans—brunch, lemon drops, and a sundress she likes. For someone who still has not answered. —B
Noxz & Shae Universe, “Can’t Phase Me”
There was a drafting table before the music. For a producer that records as noxz, Enoch Kolo worked as a lead designer at Zaha Hadid Architects for years. This is telling since his arrangements in his production show structural precision. “Can’t Phase Me” is the final single for Safe to Be _. Shae Universe sings to a currently losing friend. “It don’t matter what you’re going through/You’re too beautiful (too beautiful, babe)/To be in your head, just let it go.” With a bubbly summer feel, the encouragement does not pretend that the problem is imaginary. “I’m not folding under pressure,” she sings. She offers compliments with job descriptions attached, calls him a diamond and a trendsetter, and tells him that she can see him shining. That is what you say to a friend who cannot see it himself anymore. —P
Ariel, “CENTREFOLD”
Centrefolds don’t usually get a verse. Ariel hands one to the woman on the page in the middle of the magazine and has her narrate her experience. “Fuck a filler wanna flip her to the middle,” Ariel announces on the Relyae-produced feel-good “CENTREFOLD,” and that’s a fair description of the job. The calendar begins right afterwards: “January, February/March, April, May, baby don’t play/From June-July, fallin’ on sight.” All twelve months of a man’s year taken care of in one fell swoop, and then a country-wide roll call, New York and Japan and Los Angeles, East Coast, West Coast, and south. She drops a line early that the rest of the song revolves around: “A good girl make you believe/A bad one might set you free.” An offer with a price tag attached. But the twist at the end is what counts, because the fantasy is suddenly starting to propose to itself. Come in. Have a couple of kids. Be grateful to have the real deal. And the woman in the picture responds in just two syllables of sheer terror. —B
Rio Sterling, “Die On Me”
Distance strengthens the heart, people say at airports. And “Die On Me” leaves it behind in the first four lines. The reggae-produced song starts with tears at Terminal 5 and then watches the confidence drain out of the person left standing there. “What if you don’t feel the way that I do/What if I was never in ur plans/What if all these new foundations/Were built on sand,” Rio Sterling wonders, each what if more damning than the one before it. The patois pops up now and then, most memorably on “Just another face inna-di crowd,” which states the actual fear behind everything else, becoming ordinary for the one crying at an airport gate for you. The hook is exactly what people actually do at that point in a long-distance relationship. They count. Seconds, minutes, hours and days, out loud. —B
Parris Goebel & Destin Conrad, “DON’T BREAK MY HEART BABY REMIX”
Four counts, and the lady behind the numbers has built a career putting counts in other people’s bodies, Rihanna’s, Justin Bieber’s, and Lady Gaga’s among them. Nine years after she left her own music for a career as a director and choreographer of Jersey club hits for those artists, Parris Goebel is back. The remix of her track “DON’T BREAK MY HEART BABY REMIX” sees the second half handed to Destin Conrad (our Shatter the Standards favorite). The lover girl of the title is out and doing alright. Well, more or less. “O-o-o-options I got plenty,/Your friends are way too friendly./I’m a baddie they can’t have me/‘Cause I just want you baby.” Then the clock enters and takes the cool demeanor with it: “It’s 3 am, and I’m calling your phone/I just can’t leave you alone/Don’t wanna beg you,/But don’t wanna go home.” She’s still executing it at three in the morning, with the phone in her hand. —P
Masego, “Hello” feat. Buju Banton
Masego cut the hair off. He went into what his label described as scholastic levels of research, studying Labi Siffre, Mary J. Blige, and D’Angelo for the way they told the truth, and then started writing actual lyrics down for the first time in his life instead of freestyling. “Hello” is the Jamaican half of that research, and he brought Buju Banton to carry it out. The verse Buju Banton brings is a compliment, while Masego’s verses remain light, wingspan tattoos and weekend hellos, and a wingman doing his job. —B
India Shawn, “Marmalade”
Four years is a long time to wait for a follow-up. We’re still waiting. Subject to Change is a D’Mile production all the way through, the way Before We Go (Deeper) was, and India Shawn gave them four years after the last record to continue her association. “Marmalade” is the loudest track on it and a song that a lot of the men we talk to jam around a lot. The song is an instruction manual. Take your guard down. Take your words down, and knock on my door with whatever she asked for. She names it straight away: “Make me feel it, knock on my door/Bring that marmalade.” No pretense about the request, and there’s a stopwatch ticking under it all the way through. Later on, she will move from marmalade to brown sugar to a slice of heaven in her candy world, all of it food, none of it dinner. She wants him to come knocking on her door. —P
Mýa, “Masterpiece”
Nearly thirty years into a career that started in Washington D.C., ran through “Case of the Ex” and put her on “Lady Marmalade,” Mýa finally releases her first album in almost ten years, packing it with early 1980s Minneapolis funk. She co-produces “Masterpiece” with LaMar Edwards, and she plays the conceit all the way through. It is a painting lesson conducted in bed. “Like Mona Lisa/Pretty in the face/But, baby, you’re the masterpiece” flips the compliment onto him within three lines, which is generous, given that the rest of the song consists of corrections to pace, attention, and not staying within the lines. The outro breaks down the whole construct into the pun of the summer, Mona Lisa turned into Moan-a Lisa, Frida turned into a verb, and the masterpiece turned into an action one performs on a person. Veterans take notes on how to age gracefully. —B
B2K, “Mileage”
July 17th was chosen on purpose. Twenty-five years to the day after “Uh Huh,” B2K releases “Mileage” as the lead single from Eclipse, their first album since Pandemonium! Ethos produces it, and the four of them sound exactly like themselves, which is worth something after a reunion tour and an embarrassing VERZUZ loss to Pretty Ricky. The title is a used-car joke about a woman’s past, and the position of the song is that the mileage is none of his business. “Can we leave it in the past?/’Cause I don’t wanna talk ‘bout that,” Omarion begins, and adds the clarification a few lines later: “I ain’t just tryna get you out your clothes/Baby, I’m tryna get you comfortable.” This is a thirty-year-old man speaking, writing about a type of interest he no longer has. Lil Fizz shows up late talking about Hennything being possible with VSOP and advising exes to call him for closure but never when sober, and for a while there they all sound twenty-two again. —P
Tiana Major9, “MORE”
Most surrender songs we grew up on come from people who never had any trouble surrendering. “MORE” comes from Tiana Major9 with a history of running away from everything. “I used to run for the hills/Wear out the frills/One of the feels/Something is real,” she sings, and running is over. Love comes sweet as honey made by honey bees, which redundancy she leaves intact because she loves it, and asks for one thing amid the rain and overflow going on around it: “Once I let you in, please, don’t let me go.” She has already surrendered. The question is that the other person doesn’t make her regret it. Malik Ninety Five and Michael Baretz help her with the guitar and sax-laced production. She’s on to talking about her wildest dreams coming true and being tender with no other choice. —P
Beyoncé, “MORNING DEW (DONK)”
The file was dated October 19, 2013. It was put away in a vault for a decade, leaked as a snippet in 2021, leaked in full in 2023 (went viral months ago), and was officially released on the fourth of July as the opening track to a sixty-day countdown to a twentieth-anniversary edition of B’Day, an album that never saw it. Beyoncé and Pharrell produce, and The-Dream and Darius Dixon wrote it, and it’s pitched somewhere around the eleventh grade. “I think I wanna go back to school and have my locker full of pictures of you/So give me that ‘A’ in biology, I’m graduatin’ soon.” The champagne and the Purple Rain of the opening bar are grown people’s props on a song otherwise running solely on butterflies and locker doors. Parkwood paired it with a black and white lyric video put together from Cliff Watts footage of a 2007 Sports Illustrated photo shoot. A song from 2013, imagery from 2007, anniversary of an album from 2006, and release date in the middle of a holiday weekend. —P
Tank and the Bangas, “Move” feat. Lucky Daye
Tank Ball asks for company the way a child would. “Flowers in my garden/Bring toys to my room/Kids to jump the rope with/Don’t you leave too soon” is the opening request, and every object on the list is a backyard object. She names February a month with no days to lose. The heaviness lifts to show that she can handle it. Lucky Daye answers from the other side of New Orleans with the least subtle proposition of the season: “Aye, I’ma water your power flower/Give me a chance for thunder showers.” Two registers shouldn’t match like that, but they do, mostly because Tank returns to something harder than a mere flirtation. She’s been lost in sadness. She can’t stay there anymore, and she’s tired of flying, and her wings won’t carry her any higher. This is the third balloon. The green one from 2019 and the red one from 2022. The line running through all of them is a grandmother’s, the one about how they still can’t take you anywhere. —B
Destin Conrad, “NERVOUS”
Eighteen months, three records, and no two of them in the same genre. Destin Conrad starts with a Grammy-nominated R&B debut album, Love on Digital, follows it with the jazz project wHIMSY and its extended version, and now announces a reggae record with “NERVOUS” leading it out. Louie Lastic, who has been on all Conrad’s work, cuts the riddim. Conrad says that the song lets him stand in his Jamaican heritage and create something counter-intuitive to expectations, and the vocal part anchoring the riddim is a chop taken from a viral version of the Chinese folk song “Midu Mountain Song,” a direction no one saw coming. He writes it as a flex about how people react when he enters the room. “When I walk in the room, dem get up/Make them nervous, I know.” Then he gives the same attitude to his girlfriend, who does batty and breasts and means it all with her chest and shows no vulnerability. The list follows. One who rolls his trees, one he may visit next week, one who sings in Chinese, and a rule that no one gets too close. —B
Lucky Daye, “Nowhere Fast”
This R&B cheat code grew up in a house where secular music was forbidden becomes a writer of seduction songs for a living. David Brown wrote for Mary J. Blige and Ella Mai before Painted made him Lucky Daye, and “Nowhere Fast” is his first release after signing with Warner and winning a Grammy for “That’s You.” Back is D’Mile (smooth and laid-back compared to the others they worked on), and the two samples are the joke. Rihanna’s “Birthday Cake” and Webbie and Boosie’s “Independent” are two of the most impatient songs of the late 2000s (and early 2010s), and Daye stitches them into a song whose first three words are “Make ‘em wait.” He told Rated R&B that the world tells everyone to move faster and that real growth tends to require moving slower. Therefore, the lyrics are all decelerations, an extra stop, a phone laid down, permission to take your time. “Why you flyin’ through my mind/With no cape?” is the best question anyone asked all summer. While the hook states the pressure coming from outside, the foot of the other person wanting to keep pressed on the gas, and where all that speed takes you. —B
Adanna Duru, “One On One” feat. Bas
Nigerian-American, raised in Orange County, and on the basis of her debut, not the type to let a slight slide. “One On One” is the negotiating scene from Adanna Duru’s The Naijamerican Dream. She states her conditions right away: “Thinkin’ we could fall in love/But not today, I’m tryna catch a vibe.” She acknowledges love as a possibility, then postpones it, with a hard stop to boot, because he is hers for the evening and the evening only. This runs on conditionals: “If you wanna, maybe you could make me water/If you treat me nicely, I could be your Aphrodite.” Conditional, conditional, and a Greek goddess at the end of it. DZL arranged the Afrobeats track. Bas accepts the offer and plays his way through a hotel chain from Marriott Bonvoy into bon voyage into bon appétit. Corniest, or smoothest thing on the album, depending on the hour. —P
Momo Boyd, “Oops”
Penance, on “Oops,” is one word long. “Oops, I swear I meant to call back/Oops, I never meant to break your heart” is the entire penance Momo Boyd offers, delivered in the tone people use after backing into your car in a parking lot. She’s honest about the pattern, though: “I think I’m in love again (Uh-oh)/This time I really mean it (Uh-huh)/Yes, I know (Uh-oh)/I said the same a week ago.” A week. Khris Riddick-Tynes, who executive produced Kehlani’s album this spring, has a hand in this catchy melodic tune alongside Antonio Dixon and Ashton Norful. Later the chair turns around, and she’s the one being sold on, hearing that she’s special and that he’s never felt this way before, and reporting back that the feeling isn’t mutual though. —P
Mack Keane, “Ordinary Feelings”
Mack Keane sang (and helped produce) on Destin Conrad’s wHIMSY last year, which tells you the company he keeps. On his own record, the nerves are the whole subject. “Every time I see ya, I just feel your face light up/But every time I’m near you/I get way too anxious,” he confesses, and her happiness is the thing making him sweat. He calls what he’s feeling ordinary, then gives the rest of the record over to proving he can’t handle it: “These ordinary feelings, they make me run away.” Everything moved too fast. Right off the cuff, baby, we fell in love, and now he’s asking for a stay of execution, one more day, make it feel forever, no pressure, it’s your time. There’s a line about getting too caught up in China that has never been explained, and that’s stronger for it. The song ends with a voice asking, twice, whether he’s going to call back. Nobody answers. —P
Tone Stith, “PAGEANT STAGE”
It happened at a Kirk Franklin concert. Tone Stith and his producer Kenneth “KP” Paige attended the concert and got a text from Christopher “Brody” Brown telling them to pull up to the studio, and, according to Stith, a voice in the room said the phrase and he began singing to it, while Brody was playing piano and KP got behind the drums. This gave birth to a crown-giving song. The singer explained his idea to the same interviewer without any embellishment of it: that he wanted to give women their props and that you don’t have to be a top-notch model. Which is a more generous premise than most compliments in R&B managed this summer. “She in first place, not a close race/Ain’t no competition, it’s just you and me,” he starts out, and quickly escalates to cameras flashing, main event, the highest score, a round of applause that the room already owes her. The Edge is his first proper album since leaving RCA and losing a manager, a production partner and his grandfather inside the same twelve months. He returned, giving out trophies. —B
Victoria Monét, “Reach Out”
Three years after Jaguar II helped carry her through the Grammys, Victoria Monét has been touring with Bruno Mars in Europe while releasing her second single from a twenty-two-track album due out in October. KAYTRANADA and D’Mile split “Reach Out,” a summit by any standard, and the writing consists of one long, faintly irritated suggestion. “You live your life/And I am living mine/But I know we fantasize/How it would feel if our worlds collide tonight.” Then comes the line which ties it down to a season: “’Cause we know that every summer, miss each other/I forever wanna be your lover.” Every summer. This has been going on for years. The call-and-response takes care of the rest, her asking when the last time was and the answer coming back “forever,” which is both a period of time and a promise, and she uses it both ways. Dave Meyers directed the video, and Sean Bankhead did the choreography, which is why it all comes off as a production number about a text message that wasn’t sent. —B
Jai’Len Josey, “Serial Romantic”
A hibachi table for three is a very funny place to stage a proposition. Jai’Len Josey is twenty-three, from Atlanta, and learned her craft writing for others before she made this, and the title track from her debut starts out with her suggesting the idea: “If I was risky, and I think I might be/I’d reserve a table at Benihanas for three.” The proposition continues with the sureness of someone who has it all planned out already. A trifecta beats anything you’ve felt lately. The door is open, so you shouldn’t think small. Second verse names names, which is where the manners comedy transforms into straight reporting: Bobby wanting to take her out of state, Tony wanting to fly her out of the country, and asking for a double date with such a straight face. Food is the metaphor throughout: eyes bigger than her stomach, hoping you came hungry, a pot roast, everybody laid out on the dinner plate. Half the album is hers, and half is Tricky Stewart’s. —B
Kehlani, “Shoulda Never” feat. Usher
Babyface helped wrote it. That explains the form, and the form is a duet between two people who both know better and are going to do it again anyway. Kehlani goes first: “I tried to tell myself you’re never gonna get it again/Laying here next to you, not what I intended again.” Usher answers by admitting that he had already tried the technological solution: “I thought I blocked your ass, you found another way to get in.” Then this part is the only place where either of them shows any remorse, wishing that somebody had given them a warning in advance. Kehlani spells out her name (K-E-H-L-A-N-I), calls herself Nini and gives herself the ill nana in a nod to Foxy Brown. She ends with asking to be treated like a masterpiece because she’s rare like Mona Lisa. (Mýa beat Mona Lisa to it this summer. There’s room.) Usher spelled his name on “Nice & Slow” when Kehlani was two years old. She spells hers in reply here. —P
Dylan Sinclair, “Squeeze”
Club records usually come from people who like clubs. But “Squeeze” starts with the exact opposite confession: “I don’t like PDA/But tonight I don’t care.” Dylan Sinclair delivers it from Toronto with Jordan Manswell producing him. One man talks himself into the public display which he would otherwise leave immediately. Either the room is closing in on him, or he has had too many drinks; he can’t decide which. He counts how many people are staring at her in the building with obvious anxiety. And the chorus contains the most unexpected apology of the summer: “Look in my eyes/This isn’t usually me/Publicly causing scenes.” Permission and confession, all in one breath. He’s still standing there at the end, getting some goose loose. —P
Nia Smith, “Stuntin”
“I don’t want to be in a place where I’m making really angry, negative music,” Nia Smith told NME this summer. Her last relationship ended badly enough to make her consider it. The Brixton singer broke through on a Popcaan remix, picked up an Ivor Novello nomination and a MOBO nod, played at Glastonbury and Jools Holland, and recorded a seven-song record about an ex that lied about his financial situation. “Stuntin” starts out in patois mid-interrogation: “A ask me, ‘Weh you get, girl?’/Tell dem bare bloodclaat lie/Cah if you tell dem seh the truth, seh yuh broke.” She’s laughing at him. She laughs throughout the song, until the point when she is too damn fine to sit inside, and the Mr. Can’t Get Right isn’t calling her back. But she gives it all away in the bridge: “It’s the summer that I’m losing/Crying over stupid/Things I should be over now.” The Runners are responsible for this one. —B
nomi., “sweet talk”
We got a new favorite artist and her name is nomi. Asking a person to stop talking, in a song, using words, is a bind. “sweet talk” catches her guy mid-story twice over: “Caught you running round like word of mouth.” She has read everything he isn’t saying, and tells him plainly that she knows his mind and his lips, and doesn’t need him to explain anything. Then, in the middle of the hook, she freezes and tells him to “Hold on let me activate real quick,” which is either an ad-lib that wasn’t cut or the best decision on the entire record. 8een, Afolabi Osinulu and Hamond carry this fun energy. She wins the argument in two lines and goes on anyway. —P
Arin Ray, “Sweet Thang”
Cincinnati produced Isley Brothers and Bootsy Collins, then gave the same job to a singer that has been carrying it since The X Factor. Arin Ray built “Sweet Thang” around the thing his girl likes being called. The compliments stay plain and physical: brown skin, soft lips, making it look easy, don’t she look innocent. He asks what she’s into, and she answers him: “Dim lights, a little bit of Badu/Song about something in a window/Well, that’s my favorite tempo.” She namechecks “Window Seat” without naming it, and he takes it as an invitation. Louie Lastic (along with Dan Forte) is a secret weapon, which puts Arin Ray in the same orbit as Destin Conrad this season. The memory that sticks to you is the smallest detail in the song. She blows his phone up just to say hi. —B
Durand Bernarr, “Undivided”
Every other record on this list has someone waiting for a phone call. “Undivided” is written from the other side. Durand Bernarr used to sing backup for Erykah Badu for years before he released a solo project loud enough to get a Grammy. His BERNARR. came a year after Bloom won Best Progressive R&B Album. He apologizes without actually stopping to do it properly on “Undivided”: “I really meant to call you/Can’t make it, but I tried/Keep running out of time.” Excuses pile up and get funnier with time, all gas and no breaks, hasn’t been home, everything is alright, the errands keep running him. In the end, he says the real thing out loud: “Wish that I could give you time/But it’s something that I can’t provide right now.” He promises that he’ll be back for you. Bongo ByTheWay, Akeel Henry and Bonxu co-produced it along with Durand. —P
Devin Morrison & Seafood Sam, “ZODIAC SINE”
If you don’t have this in your playlist, then zip it! “What’s your sign?” is the least imaginative question ever asked at a bar, and it has been built into a record. Devin Morrison produced this catchy West Coast “ZODIAC SINE,” and the woman does the majority of the early talking, listing Pisces and Scorpio and Aquarius and Virgo, checking her chart against a face. Morrison’s verse advises her to avoid the trap while inviting her into it, telling her that falling in too deep is way too dangerous for her and that she couldn’t survive in this wavy world. A lot of confidence from a man who will shortly get read for filth. Seafood Sam arrives from Long Beach, swearing his devotion “word to B5,” a nod to a boy band whose first single was called “All I Do.” That name hasn’t appeared in a rap verse in twenty years. He also checked with his grandmother about the timing. He concludes that he put his heart on a sleeve and she’s wearing it now, and that it costs you to love a Sagittarius. —B