Bryson Tiller

No one straddles the middle ground between R&B and rap quite like Bryson Tiller. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1993, the singer and MC is a self-made superstar, having built his fanbase organically online before inking a deal for his first album, 2015’s T R A P S O U L. That title spells out Tiller’s artistic vision, and on the album’s best moments he lands somewhere between Lil Wayne and Omarion, his two biggest inspirations. While he’s indebted to the artists he grew up listening to, Tiller has carved out his own niche. His voice is classically beautiful but he stands out in addition to that, thanks to the way he’s able to mutate it depending on the style of music. Rocketing to the A-list with his star turn alongside Rihanna on DJ Khaled’s 2017 smash “Wild Thoughts”, Tiller continued to cultivate his multitiered approach on the same year’s True to Self. His 2020 album A N N I V E R S A R Y—named for its release exactly five years after his debut—consolidated his personal preferences even further, featuring only one guest in the form of Drake (and Big Sean on the deluxe edition). His penchant for putting a modern spin on stone-cold classics yielded the heartfelt 2021 holiday outing A Different Christmas, before stretching his already elastic vocals across the assorted stylistic backdrops of his self-titled 2024 LP. He had first planned to make three separate albums focusing on pop, rap and R&B, respectively, but instead he brought all those facets together in one organic place. The result is a hybrid creation that feels both familiar and forward-looking. “I feel like I needed to open up those new doors with these songs,” he tells Apple Music. “I was ready to try new things.”