Awards Night Candor
At the VMAs, Summer Walker spoke bluntly about classic R&B emotion guiding her compass. The Atlanta singer told Complex she prefers the era of SWV, Xscape, and Brandy to much of today’s output. “I’m just an old-school girl,” she said, stressing affection rather than disdain for contemporary peers. Her comments echo a wider debate around soul, vulnerability, and timeless songcraft in R&B’s current wave.
Classic R&B Emotion
Walker’s stance aligns with critiques from Lil Yachty and Muni Long about the genre’s emotional depth. Yachty recently said modern R&B lacks a certain richness, praising ’90s Black women vocalists as his gold standard. Muni Long urged artists to get vulnerable again, calling for wedding songs and joyous club staples that endure. Together, these voices advocate for deeper emotional resonance, narrative clarity, and craftsmanship over algorithmic gloss.
Album Momentum
Walker is deep into rollout mode for her third album, Finally Over It, while touring with Chris Brown’s Breezy Bowl XX Stadium World Tour. The lead single, Heart Of A Woman, arrived in October 2024 with a lyrical video featuring Love Island USA winners Kordell Beckham and Serena Page. It’s official visual paired Walker with NLE Choppa, framing romance through a classic melodrama lens. In May, she followed with Spend It, a heist-styled clip stacked with cameos from P-Valley’s Gail Bean, Miracle Watts, and Brandee Evans, plus Joanne the Scammer, Angela “Blac Chyna” White, and Eric Roberts. That cinematic approach hints that the album may marry diaristic confession with widescreen storytelling.
Midway Reflection
The conversation around classic R&B emotion is not about nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. It is a demand for songs that live at weddings, in breakups, and on late-night drives. Walker’s catalog has long centered those moments, translating diary entries into sing-along therapy. If Finally Over It doubles down on that sensibility, it could help steer mainstream R&B toward richer, more durable songwriting.
Radio As Safe Space
To frame the project, Walker launched Over It Radio on Apple Music, a forum for unfiltered conversation and community. She says it is about controlling her narrative and handing the mic to women she admires. In an era of fragmented timelines, that intentionality matters. It suggests a campaign built on clarity, vulnerability, and audience trust—the very ingredients her heroes embodied.
Closing Note
Whether sparking debate or staging high-concept videos, Walker’s north star remains classic R&B emotion. As anticipation builds for Finally Over It, the question is not if nostalgia wins, but how feeling evolves. If she captures the depth she craves, the album could become a modern reference point for timeless R&B.
