Why Maryland Has Become Modern R&B’s Most Fertile Ground

During a recent interview with BBC Radio 1Xtra, Gaithersburg, Maryland-bred artist Kelela made a poignant viral statement about rhythm and blues. “R&B is…probably the most expansive genre in the world,” she proclaimed. Kelela has been a force of expansion in R&B since her 2013 release Cut 4 Me, organically fusing rock and dance music elements with a core soulful timbre. Yet, in Maryland, the state where she was raised, she is only one of a growing group of R&B iconoclasts.

From the mid-2010s forward, Maryland has produced arguably the densest collage of alternative R&B talent in America. 

“We're the northernmost Southern state,” says Baltimore/Harford County-bred artist Ytk. This is a simple geographic observation due to Maryland’s placement right below the Mason-Dixon line. Yet, this reality has also bled into the tonality of the state’s progressive R&B with fervor. There can be a brashness to Maryland R&B reminiscent of Northeast hip-hop-laced grit, yet its core ethos relies on a soulful smoothness derived from a Southern melting pot. “We don't lean so heavily on a single regional sound,” Ytk confirms. “That has essentially given us more time to create something completely authentic.” 

The spectrum of distinct Maryland alt R&B talent ranges from global sensations like Dijon (who has roots in Ellicott City, Maryland) and Brent Faiyaz (who grew up in Columbia, Maryland) to underground, rising, and established acts like Nourished By Time, Joy Postell, and many more, who have crafted a plethora of shifting soundscapes. Many of these artists, and their extended community of contemporaries, have not only innovated through their own work, but created a ripple effect across contemporary R&B.

As someone who was raised in Baltimore, Maryland, I had a set of hypotheses about why my home state contained such fertile ground for R&B’s present. To test my theories, I spoke to a group of the region’s finest artists and thinkers. 

Briley Harris, a Havre de Grace instrumentalist who often tours with Kelela, was raised in a suburb north of Baltimore City. His perspective explains why in-between-urban-center spaces have birthed many of Maryland’s finest alt R&B artists (Brent, Dijon, Kelela, etc.). “In the Maryland suburbs, you're going to get influenced by Baltimore club music and go-go, but also you're going to be the kid on the bus with your headphones who’s not going to have access to the city,” Harris says about why his environment was such a hotbed for fusion. “I was always thinking, ‘How do I mix these expansive worlds?’” 

Essayist Alex Lewis affirms this from his personal experience growing up in the Maryland suburbs. “Columbia is inherently a suburb, but its young kids liked having more of the street aesthetics of Baltimore,” he explains. “I think about Brent Faiyaz’s music and imagine he was trying to navigate some of that identity of having some of the harder hip-hop aesthetics, but also wanting to make music that felt a little bit slower and smoother to match the environment authentically.”

Another defining characteristic of Maryland R&B music is a DIY approach to the genre. Both the Baltimore kids with blue-collar resources and the suburban kids with a lot of time and imagination have gravitated towards that style of music-making. “I make all of my music in my bedroom, and I don't have access to a big fancy studio,” says Turner Station-raised alt R&B singer Low.bo. 

Turner Station is a historically Black neighborhood in Eastern Baltimore County adjacent to the city. Low.bo collides the styles of Dijon and Brent Faiyaz, then filters them through a smooth guitar-centered grain. This reflects his duality — the calmness of the outskirts melded with a blue-collar tenacity. “It's not about what you have, it's about what you can do with it,” he proclaims.

Low.bo’s good friend Aloe FM, from Baltimore City, takes his rugged sound even further with a bare-bones studio setup that includes recording much of his music through his phone. Aloe even chops pre-recorded samples of R&B radio clips and weaves them within classic club breaks. Then, to tie it all together, Aloe croons guttural yet sweet melodies about everything from not knowing where he’ll get his next dollar to relationship woes to suicidal thoughts. It creates a beautiful combustion. 

Baltimore journalist Alanah Nichole Davis seems to have a clear answer as to why artists like Aloe can juxtapose hard-nosed fervor with raw openness. “Baltimore, even though it gets this rap for being this very tough city, is also a very emotional city,” she proclaims. Vulnerability is what balances Maryland grit in an essential R&B way. The lack of industry infrastructure and pipeline, which forms the blue-collar ethos, gets supplemented by an inherent emotional capacity within the environment. 

“It's a beautiful place to create because it's a beautiful place to feel,” Davis explains further. “Baltimore is an emotional city because Black women have always created space for people in Baltimore to be heard. I'm sure any R&B artist, you pick one from Maryland, had a Black woman who was a church mother, an educator, or a godmother who helped them along the way.” 

Davis also believes Maryland’s emotional R&B core stems from a tale as old as time. “Maryland, and Baltimore specifically, has become a hotbed for R&B because of the amount of churches here,” she states. According to the 2020 U.S. Religion Census, Maryland is one of the states with the highest density of religious congregations, at 46.1 congregations per 100 square miles. 

“Church was my second home,” Baltimore alt R&B artist Makinde remembers. “That proximity created a level of prioritizing emoting through the music. The foundation of singing about God in the purest form of love, the ability to embody devotion — if you give that to genres like R&B, you open its capacity.” Makinde fuses that vocal devotional yearning with both classical and alt rock genres in his expansive sound. Without his core gospel training, though, the other tones wouldn’t feel as driving. 

Baltimore City-raised singer serpentwithfeet eventually intertwined his sonic upbringing in church with electronic textures he later found in adult nightlife. Yet, that pull toward a festive, late-night energy started in his Baltimore childhood. “There used to be these late-night church musicals that would go all night,” serpent remembers fondly. “You’d have the hottest choirs locally and from different states coming in to sing. There are also many references to gospel in Baltimore club. You’d hear it in Miss Tony and Rod Lee’s music in some of the melodic top lines.” 

Rod Lee’s seminal record, “Dance My Pain Away,” has been an undeniable catalyst for some of the greater Baltimore area’s most expansive gospel, R&B, and club amalgamations. Davis confirms, “That song is a blues prayer about not being able to pay your rent. Baltimore club is really just a God sister to R&B.”

The natural blending of the church and a more edgy alternative sound can also spur some of the most guttural R&B in existence. “I'm a real fan of Dijon,” Baltimore soul singer Zadia proclaims. “When I hear him, I feel a part of myself in his music. He sounds like he’s worshiping.” She relates to his raw alt soul because of its symbiosis with her own experience existing simultaneously in worship spaces and the secular world outside them. “A lot of people went to church, but also experienced some part of the streets,” she says. “I feel like that's what drives the alternative R&B here.” 

Not every Maryland R&B artist's music is church-derived, though. “In middle school, I fell in love with the blog era of hip-hop and found out about local street artists who used the DMV punch-in flow.” Silver Spring-raised crooner Joony remembers proudly. “Then, on top of loving DMV rap, I loved R&B I found on the internet and started combining those two influences.”

Joony developed an inventive fusion that can also be heard in the work of artists like Brent Faiyaz. Many of the artists I spoke to heard how Faiyaz reworked the sound of early 2000s R&B artists like Donell Jones and added his own DMV street-rap-fueled swagger to its underbelly. 

DK The Punisher, a Baltimore-bred R&B producer who just won a Grammy for his work on Kehlani’s “Folded,” also cites Donell Jones as an essential influence on his cadences. “His instrumentation was very dynamic and guitar-driven,” he says. 

Donell Jones isn’t the only R&B artist with an edge who influenced a plethora of the artists I interviewed. Other names include Lauryn Hill, Alicia Keys, Dru Hill (from Baltimore), and The Isley Brothers. A consistent reason these names were dropped in the conversations is the potent influence of local radio. 

In the Baltimore area, two stations run the city. Magic 95.9 is the pure R&B station, which many of our parents would play during commutes. Then, 92.3, also known as 92Q, is as distinct a local radio station as you’ll come across. They play an equal amount of hip-hop, R&B, and Baltimore club. Southern Maryland areas closer to DC have a similar radio fusion. PG County-bred artist Reggie Becton recalls hearing go-go and R&B back-to-back on 95.5 in the back of his father’s Honda Accord.

DK The Punisher concludes, “I spent a lot of my life feeling like Maryland wasn’t a state that really embraced R&B. But now I'm like, ‘Actually, no, we had a strong R&B culture.’ We just had a different approach and taste, and I think that's why it sounds the way it does.”