Jazmine Sullivan

The only thing remotely surprising about Jazmine Sullivan’s ascent to the highest peaks of R&B stardom is that artists as unapologetically honest and creative as her are often unfairly ignored in favor of more safely “mainstream” talents. Alongside fellow soulful iconoclasts such as Solange and Frank Ocean, Sullivan has been rewriting the rules of the genre for the past decade and continues to forge new ground with each release. The Philadelphia native first made an impression in the music industry as a songwriter while still a teenager before breaking out as a solo artist with her 2008 debut album Fearless, a Top Ten album that garnered seven Grammy nominations. Her latest album, 2021’s Heaux Tales, received “Album of the Year” honors from several publications and was hailed as a zeitgeist-defining work from one of this decade’s brightest young stars.