R&B.
Rhythm, soul, and feeling.

Between 8701 (2001) and Confessions (2004), Usher expanded his production circle from a Jermaine Dupri-anchored core to a wide-ranging team including Lil Jon, Just Blaze, and Dre and Vidal, letting the music carry more emotional and sonic range while his voice remained the organizing force.

Teddy Riley built the grammar of new jack swing in 1987, but the deeper story is what happened after he moved to Virginia Beach in 1990: he opened a studio, co-produced half of Michael Jackson's Dangerous, and became the direct mentor to Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo, Rodney Jerkins, and the broader Virginia production scene that rewired pop music for the next two decades.

In 1971, Sly Stone recorded “There’s a Riot Goin’ On” largely alone in a Bel Air mansion attic, using a Maestro Rhythm King MRK-2 drum machine and layers of overdubs to build a new grammar for funk. Slower, murkier, and more interior than anything the genre had heard, the album produced “Family Affair,” the first number-one single ever built on a programmed drum machine beat, and its influence on everything that followed remains impossible to overstate.

Isaac Hayes recorded “Hot Buttered Soul” in 1969, producing just four songs across 45 minutes, with basic tracks cut at Memphis’ Ardent Studios and orchestral overdubs tracked in Detroit. Born from Stax’s catalog crisis and Hayes’ demand for total creative control, the record topped both the R&B and Jazz charts, peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard 200, and rewired soul music’s architecture for everything that followed.

In the summer of 1978, Blondie entered New York's Record Plant with producer Mike Chapman and turned a four-year-old demo called "The Disco Song" into "Heart of Glass," the record that proved punk and disco were never really opposites, made by a band that had been covering Donna Summer at the Johnny Blitz Benefit the whole time.

Victoria Monét's Jaguar II (2023) and Lucky Daye's Algorithm (2024) are the two strongest recent cases for what producer D'Mile does best: live-band R&B with real craft behind it. Both albums were built in close collaboration with Dernst "D'Mile" Emile II, and both delivered Grammy wins. Monét took home Best New Artist and Best R&B Album at the 66th Grammys. Daye's "That's You" won Best Traditional R&B Performance at the 67th. The connection between the two artists runs deeper than a shared producer credit — it runs through a shared understanding of what R&B can do when it is made with patience and precision.

Mýa's Retrospect, her first album in eight years, is a 16-track deep dive into '70s and '80s funk and soul, produced alongside longtime collaborator Lamar "MyGuyMars" Edwards — and it's the most fully realized argument yet for what independent R&B can sound like entirely on its own terms.

Kehlani's self-titled fifth album, released on her 31st birthday via Atlantic Records, is a 17-track deep dive into millennial R&B featuring Brandy, Usher, Missy Elliott, Cardi B, T-Pain, Lil Jon, and Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis — a confident declaration of identity from an artist who just won her first two Grammys and debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200.