Since the year is dying down and the music industry is going on a bit of a recess, it's a bit light on our end for our latest R&B Season playlist update, which rounds up the best of the best genre-adjacent releases each – or close to this – week. But we still have a couple of great tracks to talk about that dropped recently, including the return of one of 2024's breakout stars. 4batz recently came through with the new single "hood grammy." It's about as atmospheric and chilled-out as his other material (and with a similar flow), but the sharp snare and the more buzzing tones amp up the impact a little bit.
In addition, we wanted to shout out the new Miguel cut, "Always Time," on our R&B Season playlist update. It's a gorgeous guitar-led ballad that evolves little by little into a more dramatic, orchestral, and passionate outro by the end. The road there is also very captivating thanks to very striking and unique vocal harmonies, some subtle but welcome picking pattern and chord changes, and plenty of atmosphere. No matter how you slice it, it's an incredibly gratifying record by the time it ends.
HNHH R&B Season Playlist
While our R&B Season playlist update is scant this week, we certainly got more than we expected last week, so we won't complain. Kendrick Lamar shocked the world by releasing his new surprise album GNX after a ridiculous championship year. While most of the project focuses on West Coast hyphy bangers and compelling lyrical exercises, it also contains some of K.Dot's most impressive and incredible melodic cuts across his whole discography. "luther" featuring SZA is an absolute treat, and its catchiness will truly take you over on impact.
In addition, we got some more new hip-hop this week on our Fire Emoji playlist update, including the final posthumous Juice WRLD album, a re-release of one of J. Cole's classic mixtapes, and another single from Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre's upcoming Missionary album. There have been a lot of amazing releases in 2024, but while things seem to be slowing down right now, this all excites us a lot for next year.