The 20 Best R&B Albums of 2022

https://www.npr.org/2022/12/07/ [login to see] /the-20-best-r-b-albums-of-2022
In Washington, D.C., locals convene at Songbyrd Music House to discuss the merits of Tevin Campbell and Raphael Saadiq during R&B club, a monthly gathering for some of the genre's devotees, taking deep dives into its rich history. The event was created by a few enthusiastic music people to wrangle and rally the supporters for a thing often wrongly presumed barren. "I was really tired of people saying R&B is dead, nonexistent or fading away," Ashley-Dior Thomas, one of the hosts, told the Washington Post in November. "I do not understand where this is coming from." It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that R&B's influence prevails. As Aretha put it, in her 1999 autobiography, "Soul music is cultural, [...] it is a people, a nation and it is the rhythm of our lives and loves and losses and wins, our hopes and dreams and passions on parade," before dropping the mic: "R&B isn't a fad; it's the truth."