Who Will Win The Grammy For Best R&B Song?
The Grammy Award for Best R&B Song has been around since 1969, a time when the term “rhythm and blues” had quite a different connotation than it does today. Originally developed from jazz and blues music traditions in the 1940s, by the ’60s, this genre had become known for its influence on the emergence of rock and roll, and for the addition of elements from electric blues. Beginning in the 1980s, a new version appeared, known as contemporary R&B and characterized by the incorporation of influences from disco, funk, electronic music, and hip-hop. It’s this incarnation that has constituted the lineup for this Grammy category for more than four decades.
Kehlani – “Folded”
The first nominee on the list, “Folded,” is a single released in June of last year by Kehlani, a now-seven-time Grammy nominee. In addition to Best R&B Song, “Folded” is also a nominee for the Grammy’s Best R&B Performance category. The song’s lyrics cleverly describe the narrator’s desire to reunite with their ex. (The title refers to how they have “folded” all of the clothes their ex left behind, in anticipation of their ex returning to pick them up.) The songwriters are Kehlani Parrish, Andre Harris, Darius Scott, Khristopher Riddick-Tynes, Dawit Wilson, Miloลก Angelov, and Donovan Knight.
Summer Walker – “Heart of a Woman”
A less auspicious romantic relationship is described in Summer Walker’s “Heart of a Woman,” released in October of 2024. The narrator of this song is a woman whose titular heart is the only thing compelling her to give chance after chance to her toxic boyfriend. “Heart of a Woman,” which Walker wrote with David Bishop, is the lead single of Walker’s album, Finally Over It. This is her third studio album, and it closes out a trilogy: its predecessors are Over It (2019) and Still Over It (2021). It is yet another contender for Best R&B Performance as well as Best Song.
Walker was previously nominated for two Grammy Awards: Best R&B Album for her 2023 Extended Play “Clear 2: Soft Life” and Album of the Year for Kendrick Lamar’s 2022 album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers, on which she made a guest appearance.
Chris Brown (feat. Bryson Tiller) – “It Depends”
Here is yet another R&B single about romantic passion. “It Depends,” which Chris Brown wrote with too many collaborators to be listed here, was released in July of last year and features Brown’s R&B peer Bryson Tiller.
Brown is notorious for his reprehensible treatment of real-life romantic partners (and numerous other people), but this hasn’t stopped him from accumulating a total of 26 Grammy nominations (some of which date back before his first publicized domestic-violence incident in 2009), and two wins, including last year’s Grammy Award for Best R&B Album (for the studio album 11:11.) He has been nominated twice before in the category of Best R&B Song, and three previous times for Best R&B Performance, for which “It Depends” is also nominated.
Durand Bernarr – “Overqualified”
At long last, the list has reached an entry that distinguishes itself in content from its fellow nominees. “Overqualified,” released in Feb. of 2025 and written by Durand Bernarr and a large team of fellow songwriters, concerns a narrator who is most accurately described by the titular adjective and by the proverb: “No good deed goes unpunished.” Bernarr is nominated this year for two other Grammys: Best Progressive R&B Album (a category in which he was also nominated last year for “En Route”) for Bloom and Best Traditional R&B Performance for “Here We Are.”
Leon Thomas – “Yes It Is”
The list concludes with one more relationship-based nominee. Leon Thomas’s “YES IT IS,” which was released in September of 2024, chronicles its narrator’s journey to win back the heart of the love of his life. Thomas wrote the song with Jariuce Banks, Ali Prawl, Lazaro Andres Camejo, Mike Hector, Peter Lee Johnson, and Rodney Jones Jr. He has received a total of eight Grammy nominations in multiple categories and one 2024 win in this very category (for “Snooze”). This year, he is also nominated for Best R&B Album (for MUTT), Best R&B Performance (for “MUTT (Live from NPR’s Tiny Desk)”), and Best New Artist.
68th Grammy Awards: When, Where, Who
The 68th Grammy Awards will be held on Feb. 1 between 5:00 and 8:30 PM PST at Los Angeles’s Crypto.com Arena, and they’ll be hosted (as they have for the past five years) by comedian Trevor Noah. They will premiere live on CBS and stream on Paramount+.
