Year In Review: Top 20 R&B Albums Of 2025
Year In Review: Top 20 R&B Albums Of 2025
The past year in rhythm and blues music has seen its fair share of high and low notes depending on how you look at things.
We saw Beyoncé finally win the coveted GRAMMY Award for “Album Of The Year,” albeit for a project that’s predominately considered to be a country offering. Granted, the past three-decades-and-counting has seen the superstar diva incorporate soul into pretty much anything she touches sonically, which could arguably put Cowboy Carter in the category of ‘country-soul‘ even as it took home “Best Country Album” at the GRAMMYs in addition to “Favorite Country Album” at the American Music Awards.
Lest we mention that Beyoncé also broke records with each passing show this past summer in the Cowboy Carter Tour, including holding the title of highest-grossing tour at MetLife Stadium, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Soldier Field and Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London.
SZA was a hit both on the Billboard charts and box office alike, grossing major ticket sales in her film debut with the Keke Palmer-assisted One of Them Days, while simultaneously nabbing “Best R&B Song” at the GRAMMYs for her Lana album lead single, “Saturn.” 2025 also saw her top the Billboard Hot 100 as the prime guest on Kendrick Lamar’s GNX sleeper hit, “Luther,” and ended the year right alongside him a few weeks ago (December 11) by closing out what’s now been officially deemed the highest-grossing co-headlining tour in music history.
Oh, and she’s going into 2026 as the Artistic Director for VANS in a multi-year partnership. We shall for sure see SZA run!
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Awards season saw the vets getting their flowers as well, from Alicia Keys receiving the special GRAMMY Global Impact Award and Janet Jackson’s Icon Award at the aforementioned AMAs to Mariah Carey raking them in from the BET Ultimate Icon Award to the VMAs Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. Amongst those who received Lifetime Achievement Award GRAMMYs were late soul icons Prince (1958 – 2016) and Frankie Beverly (1946 – 2024).
We saw rising stars continuing to ascend both from the male and female perspective equally, with Warner Records standout Dijon delivering his critically-acclaimed sophomore follow-up, Baby, and Capitol Records’ new Brit-soul babe Olivia Dean having a crossover moment on a level akin to the late Amy Winehouse with her chart-topping breakout sophomore success, The Art of Loving. Nickelodeon-star-turned-genre-breakout Leon Thomas has probably been the most surprising as well as intriguing, spending the year doubling down on the success of his 2024 sophomore magnum opus, MUTT, with a deluxe edition that arrived in spring before closing out the year with a quality EP — more on that later. Although all three have been releasing EPs in their own right since the late 2010s, watching them have respective breakout moments in 2025 is only a testament to trusting where the blues can take you if you simply stick to the rhythm and allow timing to work everything out.
Touring is where R&B stars of past and present alike were truly able to get into their bag. Whether it was pioneering soul divas like Chaka Khan, Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight and Stephanie Mills teaming up together for The Queens: 4 Legends. 1 Stage Tour, or ’90s teen-queens-turned-titans Brandy & Monica joining forces once again for The Boy Is Mine Tour with Keyshia Cole, Coco Jones, Muni Long, Mya, Jamal Roberts and Kelly Rowland as supporting acts, it really wasn’t hard to see your favorite living soul singer this year. Lionel Richie served the aunties up something proper on his Say Hello to the Hits Tour, as did Trey Songz, Omarion, Ray J, Sammie, Bobby V, Pleasure P and Nivea on The Millennium Tour 2025 for all the ‘millennial mommies’ in the building. Mariah Carey had a grand year all-around, closing it out as she usually does with the number one record in the country while also grossing in millions on her recent Christmastime In Vegas residency in support of her evergreen 1994 holiday hit, “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” Mary J. Blige had similar success on her For My Fans Tour, as did Janet with her Las Vegas residency and special one-off shows from the Cotton Bowl Stadium in Texas to the Yaamava’ Theater in San Bernardino. The fellas of the game were simply cashing in as Usher (Past Present Future Tour), Chris Brown (Breezy Bowl XX) and The Weeknd (After Hours til Dawn Tour) each grossed well over 100 million in sales, respectively.
The aforementioned success did come with tragic moments as well given the unfortunate loss of many R&B greats, from Roberta Flack on February 24 and Angie Stone on March 1 to Roy Ayers just days later on March 4 and the still-jarring death of D’Angelo on October 14 amongst a handful of others. We will miss each and every one of their voices along with their physical presence, while never forgetting the serenading gifts that each fallen icon brought to the world of rhythm and blues.
Float on. Float on…
