Artists Like Brent Faiyaz

About

We help Alt‑R&B fans discover adjacent artists, build better playlists, and understand why certain songs feel like late‑night air.

What we do

Our guides focus on vocal timbre, production palette, tempo, and space. We share practical listening tips and starter playlists so you can explore quickly without getting stuck in algorithm loops.

How picks are made

Editorial standards

We prioritize clarity and usefulness. Each post is written for humans, not keyword bots, and we constantly refine picks as scenes evolve.

Last updated: 2025-09-21

Our approach

We listen first, then label. Genre tags are a clue, not a cage. We explain why a pick fits so you can build taste, not just playlists.

What’s next

Deeper dives into production techniques, interviews with indie artists, and city‑by‑city scenes as they evolve.

Who this site is for

This project is made for listeners who care as much about drum placement and room tone as they do about big hooks. If you’ve ever replayed a song just to hear a tiny ad‑lib tucked in the background, or you screenshot timestamps to study a bridge, you are exactly the kind of listener we keep in mind when we update these guides.

It is also for emerging artists and producers who are reverse‑engineering why Brent’s catalog feels so cohesive. Reading through breakdowns of texture, tempo, and arrangement can give you language to describe your own sound when you talk with collaborators, engineers, or fans.

How we keep these guides fresh

We revisit core pages regularly as new projects drop, artists switch sounds, or producers step further into the spotlight. Sometimes that means graduating a name from “underrated” to “essential,” or trimming artists whose newer work has moved into a completely different lane.

That ongoing edit is intentional. Brent’s corner of R&B is evolving constantly, and a discovery guide that never changes would slowly drift away from what the scene actually sounds like.

The limits of any “artists like” list

No matter how deeply we listen, every recommendation still reflects a particular set of ears and a particular moment. Scenes shift, artists grow, and new collaborators change what a record feels like. That means some of your personal favorites might never appear here, even though they clearly belong in the same wider universe.

We encourage you to treat these guides as a starting point, not a final canon. If a name feels like it is missing, it might be your cue to build a companion playlist or write your own notes on the lane.

Behind the scenes of our listening process

When we sit down to update a guide, we rarely listen in the background. We block off time, close other tabs, and treat the queue like a studio session: full songs, no skipping on the first pass, and occasional rewinds when a moment hits harder than expected.

That slower pace helps us notice the small decisions—breath control, phrasing, mix choices—that separate artists who simply share a mood from those who genuinely live in Brent's lane.

Why Brent became a reference point

Brent Faiyaz is hardly the only artist working in this lane, but his catalog sits at a crossroads of intimacy, toxicity, and restraint that makes him a natural reference for both listeners and emerging artists. His records feel personal without leaning on big vocal runs or heavy-handed production tricks.

Using him as a compass does not mean every recommended artist needs to sound just like him. Instead, we treat his work as a way to ask better questions about mood, pacing, and emotional honesty in modern R&B.

Whose voices we actively seek out

In addition to following charts and playlists, we pay close attention to writers, producers, and small communities that keep pushing Brent-adjacent sounds forward. That might mean a tiny Discord server full of fans dissecting lyric sheets, a producer collective experimenting with stripped-back drums, or a regional scene that has quietly adopted similar aesthetics.

Those sources help balance more obvious reference points, so the guides reflect both mainstream and under-the-radar movements in the lane.

What we still miss, even when we're trying

No matter how closely we listen, there will always be scenes we are late to and artists we overlook. Release schedules move fast, and some of the most forward-thinking work happens far from major platforms. Acknowledging those blind spots is part of why we invite suggestions and regularly revisit older write-ups.

This project is one map among many. We hope it nudges you toward corners of the Brent-adjacent world you might have missed, while leaving space for you to draw your own routes.

Our editorial rhythm behind the scenes

We do not treat this project like a news feed that must react to every announcement. Instead, we work in cycles: deep listening phases, note-taking phases, drafting, and only then publishing. That rhythm leaves room for initial hype around a release to settle so we can hear what actually lasts.

The result is that updates sometimes arrive in waves rather than constant trickles, but they tend to age better over time.

How we handle deep disagreements about the lane

Sometimes readers reach out with interpretations of Brent's work or this wider scene that clash sharply with our own. Instead of treating those messages as problems to solve, we treat them as evidence of how many different ways this music can be heard. When disagreements are grounded in specific songs and moments, they can sharpen our thinking even if we do not ultimately change a guide.

The goal is not to settle every debate but to stay honest about the lens we are writing from.

Why we make small revision passes over time

Instead of rewriting guides from scratch every time the scene shifts, we often make small, careful revisions—adding a sentence here, swapping an example there, or reshuffling how artists are grouped. Those micro-adjustments let us respond to new releases without erasing the context of when a guide was first written.

That layered approach matters for a lane where history, timing, and first impressions shape how records feel years later.