Upon graduation, Bongo moved to Los Angeles to focus on his music career. I finished school for my parents to kind of let them know that I appreciate them.”
It meant so much to them for me to have an education. So, I really just just so that they wouldn’t have wasted their money and their time. “They sat me down and were like, ‘Look, this is expensive, so finish this right now or we’re going to have to figure something out. He admits there was a moment when he wanted to drop out, but his parents insisted that he finished. “If you know anything about Nigerian households, they are very education-oriented,” says Bongo, who went on to study psychology at the University of North Florida. As he continued to hone in on his craft, seven years later, at 18, Bongo secured his first major placement: “Radio,” the lead single from Musiq Soulchild’s fifth album, OnMyRadio (more on that later).Įven though Bongo landed an impressive placement, it wasn’t enough for his parents.
Though his skill set wasn’t at the desired level, he knew that he found his passion through producing. “I realized that the stuff that I was making wasn’t exactly on the same level of the stuff that I listened to and I wanted to make,” he says. He remembers how he produced his first beat, which he describes as noise. He’s a bit sluggish from an all-night studio session. I started making beats because of that,” Bongo tells Rated R&B over a Zoom call. “I realized you can’t use other people’s beats, which was a smart thing at a young age. By age 11, he began experimenting with making beats. He soon realized that he needed beats to rap over. Get into it.Before Uforo “Bongo ByTheWay” Ebong became a platinum-selling producer, he was a pre-teen with a natural knack for music. Here we’ve compiled an alphabetical list of songs that have resonated with the R&B lover in us.
Some of these artists have won a music award or two this year, but the others are just as worthy. Some songs are well-known, some are deep cuts. As hip-hop and the genre continued to birth chart-climbing singles, R&B songs of the early aughts made a resurgence through sample-laden tracks from artists of the new school.įor VIBE’s 2019 Best R&B Songs list, we decided to not only choose songs that deserve a spot on a baby-making playlist but also celebrate the artists who’ve kept the core of R&B intact in their own way. This year, R&B continued to hold its own and kept the smooth, soul-stirring vibes coming even if it didn’t hold its traditional form. And if you’re a true lover of R&B, you’ve followed (and hopefully accepted) how the genre has evolved and survived since then.Ģ018 was definitely the year where R&B declared its status as “alive and well,” in a time where hip-hop made its dominating and profitable presence known. If you’re a true lover of the genre, you sometimes find yourself reminiscing about the days when R&B of the ’90s and 2000s was sensually laced with emotional vocal runs and the music videos featured not only a scene in the rain but also a phone, 2-way pager or some kind of communication device.
If you’re a true lover of R&B, you can appreciate a soulfully soothing, quiet storm-worthy, put-it-on-repeat-and-think-about-your-boo (or potential boo) type of song.