Musiq Soulchild & Ayana

Musiq Soulchild was among a crop of R&B artists who arrived during the 2000s with no debt to the flashy and sexually aggressive sounds that prevailed throughout the preceding decade. The Philadelphian, born Taalib Johnson, grew up in a household that provided him with an education in '70s soul. Additionally inspired by the contemporary likes of D'Angelo and Lauryn Hill, he applied his musical upbringing to a love for noncommercial hip-hop and refined his romantic and affable everyman style across a string of six major-label albums, four of which went either gold or platinum in...