Featured Artists

Based in Birmingham, England, Mahalia is Mahalia Burkmar, an alt-R&B/soul singer and songwriter who counts Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill among her biggest influences. A native of Leicestershire, she started writing songs and playing the guitar as a preteen. Burkmar drew the interest of major record labels by the age of 13, and released her first collection, Head Space EP, in mid-2012. After taking some time to finish school and hone her sound, Mahalia re-emerged in 2015 on Rudimental's single "We the Generation" and performed with the group on Later... with Jools Holland. Her second EP, Never Change, followed that December.

The progenitor of what he terms ratchet music (what others might call strip club anthems), DJ Mustard (Dijon McFarlane) is a rap and R&B DJ and producer from South Central Los Angeles, California, whose 2010s rise is attributed to a simple, hypnotic sound. He started with YG, as heard on the 2010 mixtape The Real 4Fingaz, but his first big hit came the following year with Tyga's "Rack City," which reached number seven on Billboard's Hot 100 chart and went double platinum. His 2012 hits came with 2 Chainz's "I'm Different" -- another double-platinum smash -- and Young Jeezy's "R.I.P." In 2013, he was behind a quartet of singles that hit the Top Ten of Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart: YG's "My N*gga," Ty Dolla $ign's "Paranoid," Kid Ink's "Show Me," and Trey Songz's "Na Na."

The persona of producer and singer Jahron Brathwaite, PartyNextDoor finds the Toronto-based artist experimenting with a fractured blend of minimal hip-hop and R&B that has drawn natural comparisons to fellow Canadians Drake and the Weeknd. No stranger to featured appearances himself, Brathwaite has lent his vocals, songwriting, and studio skills to a handful of Drake cuts, as well as ones by the likes of Big Sean, Lil Yachty, and Rihanna (most notably "Work"). His contributions on those tracks helped boost 2016's PartyNextDoor 3 into the Top Three on the Billboard 200.

Rubi Rose switched up her role in the music industry, going from modeling and appearing in videos for other rappers to making tracks of her own. After debuting in 2018 with a feature on a Playboi Carti song, Rose highlighted her brash, sexually explicit lyrics, and effortless rhyme skills on singles like 2019's "Big Mouth."

The maternal grandson of Bob Marley, Skip Marley is part of the legendary reggae family that also includes his mother Cedella and uncles Ziggy, Stephen, and Damian Marley, yet his own sound adds touches of contemporary pop, rap, and rock forms. Born in Kingston, Jamaica and raised in Miami, Florida, Skip is a self-taught musician and first performed at the age of 15, when uncle Stephen prompted him to sing the chorus of "One Love" on-stage.

One of the most iconic figures to emerge from the early-'90s G-funk era, Snoop Dogg evolved beyond his hardcore gangsta rap beginnings, becoming a lovable pop-culture fixture with forays into television, football coaching, and reggae and gospel music. Introduced to the world through Dr. Dre's The Chronic, Snoop quickly became one of the most famous stars in rap, partially due to his drawled, laconic rhyming, as well as the realistic violence implied by his lyrics. His 1993 effort Doggystyle become the first debut album to enter the charts at number one. After the popularity of gangsta rap waned in the late '90s, he proved himself to be a masterful chameleon in the hip-hop world, riding his pot-loving image in various directions that helped buoy his career into the 21st century.

A singer, songwriter, and producer, Walker signed to LVRN, the Atlanta-based, Interscope-affiliated organization that has propelled the careers of Raury, DRAM, and 6LACK. She made her recorded debut in 2018 with the self-produced acoustic number "Session 32," and shortly thereafter followed with the swooning Jacob "Gambi" Gamboa collaboration "CPR" and a pair of alluring ballads created with A. Archer, "Deep" and "Girls Need Love." All of the material was included on Walker's first album, Last Day of Summer, issued that October. Clear, a four-track acoustic EP, was out only three months later. Walker returned later in 2019 with the single "Playing Games."

Amid work as an actor, dancer, and choreographer along with other creative pursuits, Teyana Taylor has had a labyrinthine career as an R&B recording artist, highlighted by the forthright, soul-rooted Top 20 albums VII (2014) and K.T.S.E. (2018). The Harlem native signed with the Neptunes' Star Trak label, helped popularize the Chicken Noodle Soup dance, and aided in the choreography for Beyoncé's "Ring the Alarm" video by the time she appeared on a 2007 episode of MTV's My Super Sweet 16, when she became visible to the public. The year after Taylor made her television debut, she released her brash first single, the Jazze Pha-produced "Google Me." The track reached number 90 on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and was followed in 2009 by the mixtape From a Planet Called Harlem, but that was the extent of her output for Star Trak. By the end of the year, she'd picked up a co-writing credit on "So Cold," a cut included on Chris Brown's Grammy-nominated Graffiti.

The Weeknd is the alias of alternative R&B enigma-turned-pop star Abel Tesfaye, whose aching accounts of emotionally and physically toxic indulgences have translated to multi-platinum sales and Grammy recognition. Supported by Drake early on, the singer and songwriter arrived in 2011 with three mixtapes offering morose ballads that seemed to have no designs on mainstream appeal.

Tiwatope Savage-Balogun, known as Tiwa Savage, arrived in the early 2010s with a hybrid form of dance-pop that that synthesizes Afropop, reggae, and contemporary R&B. Born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria, the singer and songwriter moved with her family to England when she was 11 years old.

One of the more versatile commercial artists to surface during the early 2010s, Tory Lanez is a songwriter and producer who flits between and fuses R&B and rap. Alternating vocally between swift and rugged boasts and smooth and sensitive come-ons, he made steady strides toward the mainstream with numerous mixtapes, guest appearances, and self-directed videos. He hit the Top Five of the pop charts in his native Canada and in the U.S. with his debut album, I Told You (the source of the Grammy-nominated single "Luv," 2016), and has been equally successful with the successive full-length projects MEMORIES DONT DIE (2018), Love Me Now (2018), and Chixtape 5 (2019).