Khamari Will Not Let R&B Die

The music industry transmogrifies so often that certain Black artists are stuck dealing with the strain of anachronism. They’re the children of Usher’s heartthrob vulnerability, who came of age under Frank Ocean’s ethereal poeticism, and matured at a time when their distillation of the two previous eras are blamed for the death of the genre as a whole. What do you do when you’re anchored in tradition while dragging a music genre into the future? 

You do what 28-year-old R&B sensation Khamari has done: make the music that is true to you.

“It’s our job to keep making the music that we like because eventually [the labels] are like, ‘Wait a minute, this still exists and people still like it?’ Then they go back to put money into it,” he tells Okayplayer.

The Gen Z singer-songwriter is an intergenerational bridge laid over samples of both D’Angelo (“Sycamore Tree”) and Jill Scott (“Acres”), that sounds like home to people of different walks of life. His honey-drenched tone, melting over lyrics about “the quicksand under my feet is suffocating me with time,” on the standout track “Lonely In The Jungle” from his second album To Dry A Tear, feels as uniquely personal as a fingerprint. Now signed to Encore Recordings, after leaving RCA Records in 2024, you can hear the freedom in his music that many Black artists aren’t afforded in an era of analytics dictating art.

“This era just feels the most like myself,” he says. “As an artist, the goal is to become more and more yourself as time goes on.”

In a candid chat with Okayplayer, Khamari discusses how RCA stifled his creativity, why he won’t let R&B die, staying current while still paying homage to the past and building the future, and how he doesn’t let TikTok fame and those Frank Ocean comparisons overshadow who he actually is.

Okayplayer: How would you say you've evolved from when you first got in the industry?

Khamari: I first signed to RCA Records in 2021. The only difference now is having more perspective on how that stuff works. You know how to better approach things while trying to maintain your integrity, personality, and your vision because you know how people are gonna do things, or how creative conversations work, and how relationships work. 

You left RCA in 2024 over creative differences. Were there any instances that exemplified the tug and pull between what the label wanted and what you wanted?

The differences with RCA mostly had to do with their vision for what an artist should do. I think their vision for me was to be a different artist than I am. I don't necessarily mean that as them telling me, “You should be making hit songs.” I think they just expected me to move differently. I don't think you know that until you go through the relationship, have conversations, and learn about each other. Sometimes you only know you're not right for each other when you have the deepest conversations.

We’ve heard about how R&B is dead over the last few years. What do you feel is the major labels’ role in the current state of R&B music? 

If people at the labels say there's no R&B, then they make the decision to stop funding R&B. If they make the decision to stop pushing certain kinds of artists, or stop lifting up a certain kind of artist, or putting the megaphone to a certain kind of artist, then it feels like that might be the case. It’s our job to keep making the music that we like because eventually [the labels] are like, “Wait a minute, this still exists and people still like it?” Then they go back to put money into it. 

The role of major labels hasn't really changed in the last ten years. Before, they were much more part of the development of artists. They kinda still are now, but now they’re just finding the right artists — whether that artist already has a moment or they think they can have one — and propping them up. They’re acting as financial support and creative guidance sometimes. But I think it's weird because it's also so different for each artist. Everybody needs something different from their label. 

Your second album, To Dry A Tear, isn’t just a collection of love songs, like many R&B and pop albums are these days. There’s a narrative of a man who starts the album unsure about commitment, who is unable to truly connect with someone by the end. How important was storytelling for you on this album?

Storytelling is the centerpiece of everything I do, including every decision I make. Storytelling and finding a unique way to tell your story are the only true ways to have a fingerprint as an artist or as someone who wants to do anything meaningful. We all have similar experiences, but you and I can go through the same thing and tell our stories in different ways. I would hope my place in music is like an anchor, keeping it from going too far in one direction.

I love the idea of you keeping R&B anchored in the traditions while not holding it back from growing. 

Artists like Miguel are very good at maintaining the structure of things that we've always appreciated while pushing boundaries that need to be pushed.

Your career has existed entirely in the streaming era, where algorithms and playlisting influence stardom in ways that DJs and magazines used to in the past. Algorithms and data make it hard for an artist to just be an artist, without thinking about music strategically. Do you agree with that? 

Yeah. I think it is very hard to be an ambitious artist who still cares about being an artist during these times. All the things that are important to do as an artist but also as a business person – TikToks and self-marketing — don’t feel natural. That’s part of the reason why I don't use the internet the same way a lot of people do. I try to find a balance of communicating in ways that people appreciate the music without going so far that there's nothing left to say. Unfortunately, you do have to think about that as an artist because there's just so much happening, and the floodgates are wide open. You have to find a way to cut through the noise. 

A lot of times, that just means being in front of people's faces more. So, you have to think strategically about how you communicate and how often you communicate. You have to think about where you communicate and how to get people to understand that. I feel what I have to say is important, even though a million other artists feel the same way. Of course, I think about this. That's like the nightmare fuel that most artists have right now that keeps us up at night (laughs).

Let’s go back to the start of your career. How did you end up writing on Marshmello and Imanbek’s 2020 EDM hit “Too Much,” which featured Usher?

Before I started putting out music myself, I was just writing songs. The industry was so different back then. It was a place where you could write a song, and it was not out of the realm of possibility that it would get cut by a major artist because people were taking songs at that time. They were much more open to it. I was pitching a lot of songs. I was writing just to write and sharpen my pen. I was also trying to figure out my personal style by just doing a wider range of stuff. That was just a song that came out of one of the sessions from that time period. 

What did it mean to you to hear Usher sing your lyrics? 

It’s a weird feeling. Obviously, he’s someone I grew up listening to, so it’s kind of validating in that sense. You kinda feel like you're getting a peek behind the curtain in the sense that someone you respect musically appreciates your taste and the things that come out of your brain. It still doesn’t feel real (laughs). 

Even with your complicated relationship with social media, you’re still one of the rare acts that lead with your music and have found sizable success. You’ve amassed six million TikTok likes, with numerous videos cracking over 1 million views. How has your relationship with TikTok evolved over those years?

I have to be careful with what I say. I don’t want to piss anybody off (laughs). It’s a really interesting relationship because when you do have that kind of positive reaction in that space, there’s a feeling of internal validation, even if you don’t want it from that platform. TikTok has become something that us artists look down on. We are so precious about the package; how people perceive us and what we give people. I think it's been tough for me to struggle with the idea of having to give people parts of myself that don't feel natural to me, because nothing I do on the internet feels natural to me. 

Finding a way to balance that relationship with the internet — by giving your supporters more of yourself so they feel more connected to you — is where I see the importance and value [of TikTok]. My relationship with it is still very dynamic (laughs). It's tough.

You’ve still been successful on that platform while giving old-school R&B-style music. What does that say about the current state of R&B and where the genre’s going? 

I don't even know if it's about R&B or if it's just about the world. I think people can appreciate honesty. People appreciate rawness. People appreciate things that feel real to them and remind them of how to feel. We're in a world where it's just so easy to become numb and apathetic. People just want to feel, and they want to see people who remind them it's okay to feel. 

In those TikTok comments, people have been pointing out similarities between the music you put out and Frank Ocean’s. The vocal inflections and poetic lyrics do match up. What was your reaction when you first heard people started making those comparisons, or did you already hear about them before the comments?

We’re all influenced by certain things. It’s not something I shy away from.  I want to always allow people the room to recognize, while still recognizing the things I bring to the table that are outside those comparisons. I want them to recognize I have my own identity. That influence is a part of me, but not the totality of everything I do. When [Frank] was coming up, people were comparing him to D'Angelo. They were saying he was similar to Prince. You're always gonna be compared to somebody until you're not. 

What people really mean is, "You make me feel the way this thing I already appreciate makes me feel.” I don’t take it as any disrespect. He’s obviously someone I appreciate creatively, artistically, musically. I take it as a compliment. That’s why it's important to make sure that, regardless of the influence, the sonics, and the melodies, my story is still there because, as time goes on, that's how you separate yourself from what people compare you to.

What are three songs from To Dry a Tear you would’ve loved to put someone else on, dead or alive? 

I’d put SZA on “Acres.” I would put Prince on “He Said, She Said” on the guitar solo and bridge. And I’d probably put J. Cole on “Lord, Forgive Me.”