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Khalid VibeZ

Twenty-eight tracks from an El Paso teenager who became, almost accidentally, the defining pop-R&B voice of the late 2010s.

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Khalid

Khalid Robinson was still in high school in El Paso when "Location" started spreading, and the speed of what followed is genuinely unusual: within two years he was on records with Calvin Harris, Billie Eilish, Disclosure and half the American charts.

The reason is the voice. It is warm, slightly hoarse, and sits in a low, conversational register that almost never strains — which makes it unusually easy to place next to anyone. He is a superb collaborator precisely because he does not compete with whoever else is on the track.

The other reason is the subject matter. American Teen is one of very few R&B albums genuinely about being young: phones, cars, curfews, group chats, moving town. He wrote about adolescence while he was in it, which is harder than it sounds.

What to listen for

"Location" is the one that started it and still the best distillation of the appeal — a song entirely about the logistics of meeting someone, which is what people actually spend their time on.

"American Teen" and "Saturday Nights" are the album's thesis statements, and "Better" is the biggest single here by a wide margin.

"Talk" with Disclosure is the best-produced record on the list — a genuinely strange, minimal dance track that went to the top of the charts anyway.

"OTW" with 6LACK and Ty Dolla $ign and "Seasons" with 6LACK are the R&B collaborations, and the Alina Baraz tracks — four of them — are where his voice sounds most at home.

"Scenic Drive" with Ari Lennox and Smino is the loosest and most enjoyable thing here.

"9.13", "Vertigo" and "Last Call" are the album cuts that show what he can do without a feature, and "Motion" is the deep-catalogue favourite.

Go deeper

American Teen (2017) is the album to hear in full — it is a more coherent record than its singles suggest. Free Spirit (2019) is the bigger, less focused follow-up.

Alina Baraz's It Was Divine and Snoh Aalegra's catalogue are the natural neighbours, and Frank Ocean's Channel Orange is the record that made this kind of writing possible.

Listening note: the reason he appears on so many other people's records is that he never competes with them. He sings low, stays inside a narrow range, and leaves the top of the arrangement empty for whoever else is there. It reads as effortlessness and it is actually a very deliberate kind of generosity.

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