Jack Harlow goes full R&B
Jack Harlow dropped 'Monica' on March 13 — his 28th birthday — and the album largely abandons rapping for hand-played, jazz-tinged R&B; critics flagged the intimate, soul-forward pivot and Harlow himself said he 'loves R&B' and even claimed he 'got blacker' on the record Variety WLKY People Stereogum.
Recorded at Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village, the project was tracked in that historic room rather than in a typical hip‑hop studio setting. musicbrainz.org Harlow pared the record down to nine songs — a notably short tracklist for him — with titles including “Trade Places,” “Lonesome” and “Say Hello.” inmusicblog.com Credits and early press list a mix of R&B and jazz-adjacent collaborators and producers — names reported include Robert Glasper, Cory Henry, Omar Apollo, Ravyn Lenae, Rogét Chahayed and Lido on the rolls. hiphopdx.com He told The New York Times’ Popcast about the project’s direction in a wide-ranging interview, a conversation that was immediately picked up and summarized across outlets. nytimes.com Major reviews have framed the sound as heir to that late‑’90s/early‑’00s neo‑soul lineage, with Variety explicitly likening its vibe to D’Angelo’s Voodoo and several outlets invoking the Soulquarians era. variety.com The Popcast remarks generated fast social‑media criticism and headlines about cultural sensitivity, while the album’s concise, live‑band approach and the artist’s previous chart history (his 2023 Jackman set debuted in the Billboard top 10) have been prominent parts of the conversation. aol.com
