Beyoncé Knowles at the Brits Awards 2004.

“R&B is still not nearly as big as hip-hop: It has a market share of 7.43% of overall album consumption units so far in 2020, compared with 19.17% for hip-hop, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. Yet it’s growing — by 4.64% in market share compared with this time last year. (Hip-hop’s market share grew less than 1% in the same period.) And as the genre catches up commercially, it’s having a renaissance artistically — one that’s largely powered by female singer-songwriters who are reimagining and reinterpreting its sounds for a new generation of listeners. Of the 14 releases that have reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Top R&B Albums chart in 2020, nine of them have been from women.”