As a genre, R&B music blessed us with some of the most poignant, adventurous and enlightening albums of 2017. While two of the top 10 albums on NPR Music's 50 Best Albums of 2017 were R&B, there were plenty of other gems that dropped this year that deserve a spotlight.
After years of Internet incubation, women like Kehlani, Kelela and BOSCO blossomed with debut albums. Jorja Smith experimented with garage, Hiatus Kaiyote's Nai Palm struck out on her own and Maroon 5's PJ Morton got back to his NOLA roots. But throughout the year's crop of stellar R&B releases and collaborators, the following 10 projects hit it out of the park and made up the soundtrack to an emotional year.
A group of NPR Music staffers who pride themselves as R&B stans got together to make some bold choices about the best in this year's genre. Here, in no particular order, are NPR Music's picks for the top 10 R&B albums of 2017.
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