Is Yearning Dead?
R&B has a vulnerability problem. Especially, in what’s being called the ‘nonchalant’ epidemic.
Written by Jamari Shelton
If you turn on the radio right now or scroll through the latest streaming playlists, you’re bound to notice a very specific, very icy trend. Everybody is detached. We have tracks dedicated to text messages left on read, songs bragging about how easy it is to replace a partner by tomorrow morning, and late-night anthems celebrating the art of the situationship. It’s clever, but is it getting played out?
Whatever happened to just begging?
Think about the R&B we grew up on. Like Jodeci’s ‘Stay’. He sang, “I’m sorry I left you, I left you crying. Since you’ve been gone, I’ve been all alone…Please, baby, I’m begging for you to stay at home,”
While my mother played the song every day, it made me feel like I was going through a devastating divorce at 10 years old and about to beg my husband not to leave me.
There was a time when music was anchored by an absolute, unashamed willingness to look pathetic for the sake of love. We had grown men in oversized suits sliding across the floor in the pouring rain, crying out for another chance…just like Boyz II Men's ‘On Bended Knee’.
We had vocal powerhouses screaming at the top of their lungs because the thought of their person walking out the door was quite literally the end of the world. There was no pride. No ego. Just raw, unfiltered yearning.
Once more, take a look at Boyz II Men. When Wanya screams, “I’m down on my knees, begging you, please,” you feel the sheer desperation in his throat. Or look at someone like Usher during the Confessions era. He built a monument to accountability and heartbreak, laying his flaws completely bare on the table because the thought of losing what he had was too much to bear.
Now, the dominant mode is self-preservation.
It’s a reflection of how we date now, sure. We live in an era of endless options and hyper-independence, where showing too much interest is seen as a tactical error. But R&B is supposed to be the one safe space where we get to drop the armor. It’s supposed to be the place where we admit that we are lonely, that we are hurting, and that we actually need someone else to survive the night.
When you strip that yearning out of the music, you lose the soul of the genre. Tank, one of the literal blueprints for 2000s R&B, stated in an interview with The Breakfast Club, “Men…You have to fall back in love with the idea of making love to a woman. You have to study a woman…in order to do this thing the right way,”
But if you look closely at the underground and the edges of the mainstream, you can see that people are getting tired of the cold shoulder.
In an X post, a user posted, “You know why 90s rnb is the best! They knew how to yearn! BRING BACK YEARNING! BEG FOR IT AGAIN !”
The appetite for real, heavy-chested emotion is starting to claw its way back.
The Cool-Guy Routine
Look at an artist like Giveon. When he reveals his signature baritone in “Heartbreak Anniversary,” it feels heavy. He sings, “I get like this every time. On the days it feels like you and me, heartbreak anniversary,” He’s letting you see the wound in real-time.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Giveon stated, “I was learning how to cope with heartbreak.”
Along with artists like Giveon, we have Brent Faiyaz and Bryson Tiller. Artists who’ve practically mastered the art of modern toxicity, but with a crucial twist: beneath all the slick talk and the player persona, there is a lingering sense of paranoia and isolation that feels incredibly honest.
But eventually, the facade cracks, and the cool-guy routine completely fails them.
On his 2026 album ‘Icon’, Brent Faiyaz sings “Maybe it’s a little bit rushed, but I’m falling in love. Hope that’s not too much, but this isn’t a crush,” Continuing to sing about the woman he’s with, even ‘fell down from heaven’. He’s dying to know how she feels and if it’s anything like how he does.
A complete surrender and a twist from ‘Gravity’ featuring Tyler, The Creator from his 2021 album WASTELAND. Here he sings, “Is you gon’ stress me out and cuss me out? I had my fair share of women; feelings don’t catch me now.”
It’s a beautiful moment of vulnerability from an artist who usually wouldn’t want to settle. It proves that no matter how hard you try to stay numb, feelings always find a way to force you back to your knees.
Screaming Into the Mic
We can’t talk about yearning without talking about SZA. SOS wasn’t a massive, record-breaking piece of art for nothing. It resonated because she was willing to scream her ugliest, most insecure thoughts directly into the microphone. When she sings about wanting to kill her ex, or admits that she’d touch fire for him three or four times, that’s a pure version of love.
Sometimes it feels good, sometimes it doesn’t. “You stay on my mind, I can’t regret any time spent with you. And I still wonder if you notice me, yes…I don’t wanna be your girlfriend. I’m just tryna be your person.” She sings on “Notice Me” from her 2022 hit album SOS.
Yearning isn’t dead, but it has definitely been hiding out in the shadows, waiting for us to get over our collective fear of looking stupid. Because at the end of the day, no matter how many protective walls we build around our hearts, nobody actually wants to live in a world where nobody cares.
That makes us feel like love is something worth falling apart over. And the moment more artists realize that vulnerability is a superpower, not a weakness, R&B is going to start feeling more like home again.
Jamari Shelton is a Chicago-based entertainment writer and pop culture enthusiast covering breaking celebrity news, television, film, reality TV, and the internet moments everyone can’t stop talking about. She recently graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a degree in Broadcast Journalism, and is passionate about telling stories that inform, entertain, and spark conversation.
I think in part yearning in R&B comes down to a willingness to sing real ballads, look at Lucky Daye with That’s You, or Tiana Major9 with Alone, even Alex Isley with Thank You for a Lovely Time. The musical arrangements have to support vocals that have depth and nuance, so chord changes, timing etc., matter as well as the courage to feel.
I believe that yearning is not only back but it’s always been there just with certain artists. Artists like Kehlani, Leon, and Lucky Daye all have yearning as a cornerstone in their discography. I love that the need for yearning is becoming a conservation. I also think that the conversation is getting louder to the point where I believe it can begin challenging other artists.