100 Best R&B Songs of All Time

Aretha Franklin

The greatest R&B performance ever recorded — Aretha taking an Otis Redding song and making it the anthem of two movements at once.

Marvin Gaye

The most socially conscious R&B record ever made — silky production over a message of devastating urgency.

Sam Cooke

The civil rights movement in song — Cooke's voice carrying the full weight of American history.

Ray Charles

The moment gospel met blues and R&B was born — Charles scandalising the church and inventing a genre.

James Brown

The first funk single — Brown stripping R&B to its rhythmic skeleton and building something entirely new.

Otis Redding

Redding's posthumous masterpiece — Southern soul at its most reflective and most heartbreaking.

Stevie Wonder

The clavinet hook that launched the greatest run of albums in R&B history — Wonder at peak creativity.

Al Green

The Hi Records groove and Green's falsetto devotion — the warmest love song in soul history.

Curtis Mayfield

Falsetto and funk over a message of Black pride and upward mobility — Mayfield's most jubilant statement.

Marvin Gaye

Gaye's comeback after years of exile — the most seductive R&B record ever made.

Michael Jackson

Quincy Jones and Moffett's disco-soul production with MJ at his most purely joyful.

Whitney Houston

Pure R&B euphoria — Houston at her most playful and irresistible.

Prince

Stripped bare funk — no bass guitar, just rhythm and Prince's demand for total attention.

Janet Jackson

Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis producing the smoothest, most sensuous groove of the decade.

Mary J. Blige

Hip-hop soul's founding document — Blige setting the template for a generation.

TLC

Social commentary delivered as the decade's most irresistible pop-R&B single.

Aaliyah

Timbaland's baby-crying drum sample and Aaliyah's cool — the sound of the late 1990s.

Usher

The most accurately observed description of helpless romantic infatuation in early 2000s R&B.

Beyoncé

The song that announced a solo superstar — Beyoncé in complete, ecstatic control.

Alicia Keys

Piano-led neo-soul with a voice that arrived fully formed — Keys's debut as an announcement of greatness.

R. Kelly

Gospel-infused R&B that became the decade's defining inspirational anthem.

Lauryn Hill

The most emotionally honest song on the greatest R&B album of the decade.

D'Angelo

Voodoo's centrepiece — neo-soul at its most sensual and most technically adventurous.

Erykah Badu

The neo-soul debut that positioned Badu as the most original voice in contemporary R&B.

Maxwell

Maxwell's BLACKsummer's Night produced the most lushly orchestrated neo-soul of the decade.

Luther Vandross

Bacharach-David's standard given its definitive interpretation by the velvet voice.

Sade

Dark, cinematic, and devastatingly beautiful — Sade at her most emotionally exposed.

Whitney Houston

Houston's motivational ballad — technically immaculate and emotionally overwhelming.

Boyz II Men

Thirteen weeks at No. 1 — a record at the time, and still the definitive R&B breakup group harmony.

En Vogue

Four voices in perfect lockstep — the decade's finest R&B harmony performance.

New Edition

New jack swing before the genre had a name — the template for boy band R&B.

Bobby Brown

The declaration of independence that made Brown a solo star — confident, funky, and unapologetic.

Bell Biv DeVoe

New jack swing at its most infectious — the sound of R&B entering the hip-hop era.

Keith Sweat

The quintessential slow-jam devotion record — Sweat's pleading falsetto irresistible.

Guy

Teddy Riley inventing new jack swing with this track — the moment hip-hop and R&B fused permanently.

Teddy Pendergrass

The most physically commanding R&B vocal performance of the late 1970s.

Gladys Knight & the Pips

Knight's voice and the Pips' background declarations — the most human story in classic soul.

Diana Ross

Ashford & Simpson's composition given its most theatrical interpretation.

Smokey Robinson

The most sophisticated lyric in the Motown catalogue — sadness hidden behind a performer's smile.

The Four Tops

Levi Stubbs's impassioned delivery over Holland-Dozier-Holland's perfect production.

The Temptations

The Motown Sound at its most radiantly happy — the guitar intro as recognisable as any in popular music.

Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell

The original Ashford & Simpson production — Gaye and Terrell in their most joyful duet.

Stevie Wonder

Wonder at his most exuberantly playful — a declaration of love as pure fun.

Jackson 5

Michael at 12 delivering a vocal of extraordinary maturity — the Motown ballad at its most moving.

Chaka Khan

Ashford & Simpson writing the ultimate female empowerment anthem for Chaka's extraordinary voice.

Sister Sledge

Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards producing the great Chic Records solidarity anthem.

Earth, Wind & Fire

The most joyful song in the funk-soul catalogue — do you remember the 21st night of September?

Commodores

Lionel Richie's most tender ballad before his solo career — intimate and perfectly sung.

Kool & the Gang

The party anthem that has outlasted every decade it has traversed.

Bill Withers

The longest sustained note in chart history in the chorus — Withers finding the key to unconditional happiness.

Roberta Flack

Flack's silk voice and the most precise description of music's power ever written.

Barry White

White's orchestrated soul — the deepest, warmest voice in pop over the lushest arrangement.

Isaac Hayes

Wah-wah guitar and strings — Hayes creating the blueprint for blaxploitation cool.

Millie Jackson

Southern soul storytelling at its most frank and most emotionally devastating.

Patti LaBelle

The New Orleans-inflected declaration that remains the defining female power statement in funk-soul.

Michael Jackson

The disco-funk title track that launched Jackson's adult career.

Toni Braxton

Braxton's contralto over pulsing R&B production — her most sensuous hit.

Destiny's Child

Paranoid R&B perfection — the song that made Beyoncé the clear centre of gravity.

Missy Elliott

Timbaland and Missy operating at maximum creativity — backward lyrics and the most innovative R&B production of its year.

Ciara

Lil Jon's crunk production and Ciara's debut as R&B's most promising dance talent.

Rihanna

Calvin Harris's EDM production and Rihanna's floating melody — the crossover moment that defined a decade.

Beyoncé

The most physically charged track on the visual album — Beyoncé and Jay-Z's most intimate moment.

The Weeknd

The Fifty Shades soundtrack single — Abel at his most hauntingly beautiful.

Frank Ocean

Ocean's Nostalgia, Ultra mixtape producing this emotionally devastating early statement.

Miguel

R&B as genuinely erotic and genuinely sophisticated simultaneously — Miguel's breakthrough.

SZA

Ctrl's opening track — SZA arriving as the most vulnerable and most searching voice in contemporary R&B.

H.E.R.

The anonymous debut — an extraordinary voice and guitar player revealing herself slowly.

Daniel Caesar

Toronto neo-soul as devotional — Kali Uchis's guest vocal and Caesar's serene production.

Khalid

Teen R&B of extraordinary emotional intelligence — Khalid found an audience immediately.

Bryson Tiller

Trap soul crystallised in one song — Tiller's debut as the genre's founding document.

Summer Walker

Atlanta R&B at its most intimate and most uncomfortable — Walker's voice raw and real.

Jhené Aiko

Aiko's vulnerability and the beat's warmth — contemporary R&B's most confessional moment.

Tinashe

The R&B-meets-hip-hop production that positioned Tinashe as one of the decade's most exciting voices.

Kehlani

Suicide Squad soundtrack giving Kehlani her most atmospheric and most widely heard moment.

Normani

The most confident statement of any Fifth Harmony alumna going solo — pure R&B star quality.

Lizzo

Self-love as funk-pop exuberance — Lizzo arriving as R&B's most joyful and most necessary presence.

Doja Cat

Planet Her's most explicit track — Doja's R&B voice at its most confident.

Giveon

The voice of 1970s soul arriving in 2020 — Giveon's bass-baritone as something genuinely new.

Silk Sonic

Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak channelling the 1970s with total authenticity.

Lucky Daye

Classic R&B production values with a contemporary voice — Daye's debut as a promise kept.

PJ Morton

New Orleans soul at its most dignified — Morton as one of contemporary R&B's most underrated artists.

Snoh Aalegra

Swedish-Iranian neo-soul of extraordinary warmth — Pharrell produced.

Ari Lennox

Dreamville Records producing the most Erykah Badu-influenced R&B debut of the decade.

Syd

The Internet's singer-songwriter going solo with R&B's most sensuous self-introduction.

Steve Lacy

The Internet alum's No. 1 hit — indie-R&B as the mainstream finally catching up to the underground.

Omar Apollo

Spanish-language R&B crossover — Apollo's heartbreak rendered in two languages for double the pain.

Brent Faiyaz

Wasteland's centrepiece — Faiyaz making darkness seductive.

Victoria Monét

The R&B songwriter finally becoming the star she always deserved to be.

Coco Jones

The Disney Channel alumna's adult arrival — a voice of genuine soul depth in a perfect setting.

Tyla

South African Afrobeats-R&B fusion creating one of 2023's most globally danced-to records.

GloRilla

Cardi B collaboration and GloRilla's most fully realised mainstream moment.

Fridayy

Nigerian-American R&B of infectious lightness — Fridayy's voice as one of the genre's brightest new lights.

Tems

Afrobeats-R&B from Lagos that made Tems the genre's most important new voice.

Fireboy DML

Ed Sheeran collaboration giving Afro-R&B its biggest international crossover moment.

Wizkid

Tems featured, Wizkid producing a Lagos love song that seduced the entire world.

Burna Boy

Toni Braxton sampled into a Yoruba-English heartbreak anthem — Afro-R&B at its most devastating.

Davido

The longest-charting Nigerian pop song on the US Billboard charts — pure Afrobeats joy.

WizKid

Drake collaboration that brought Afrobeats to the hip-hop mainstream for the first time at scale.

Adekunle Gold

Highlife-influenced R&B from Lagos — Gold bridging African and American soul traditions.

Rema

Nigerian pop-R&B that spent over a year charting globally — Selena Gomez remix taking it to another level.

What is the greatest R&B song of all time?

"Respect" by Aretha Franklin (1967) is the most commonly cited greatest R&B song, combining vocal perfection with cultural significance as the soundtrack of the civil rights and feminist movements.

What is the difference between R&B and soul music?

Soul music is generally considered a subset of R&B that emphasises gospel influences and emotional intensity. All soul is R&B, but not all R&B is soul — the genre also encompasses funk, new jack swing, neo-soul, and contemporary R&B.

Who started R&B music?

Ray Charles is often credited as the father of soul and a foundational figure in R&B, fusing gospel and blues in the early 1950s. Louis Jordan also played a crucial role in defining the genre's early sound.

What are the best contemporary R&B songs?

Contemporary R&B highlights include "Supermodel" by SZA, "Leave the Door Open" by Silk Sonic, "Bad Habit" by Steve Lacy, "Water" by Tyla, and "Essence" by Wizkid featuring Tems.