WhoNoz. Flirts With the R&B Space-Time Continuum

The state of contemporary R&B is one of those lightning rod topics that’s reignited every few years on social media, usually when a celebrity or musician condemns the state of the genre. Sometimes, folks ask if R&B is dead altogether, decrying its overt sexual content, increased BPM, lack of tenderness and intimacy, or something else. Others argue that R&B isn’t dead, it’s just different. Like hip-hop — and hell, just about any other popular music genre — R&B goes through the same cyclical lamentations of loss as it changes and responds to an ever-fragile, bottom-line-obsessed music industry. 

Far more interesting than these dirges sung at R&B’s perennial funeral, however, are the artists who are actually doing something about it. On their independently released debut EP last month, What Happened to Pluto?, the Charlotte collective WhoNoz. does exactly that, transposing and re-contextualizing the signature elements of 1990s and early 2000s R&B for the streaming era. Cheekily referencing Millennials’ beloved lost planet, co-producers Jared Jamaal and Devan “DEViANt” Dewalt have sculpted a five-song EP that features some of North Carolina’s sharpest voices in R&B, including Dexter Jordan, Marschaleine, Benjamin Burdon and more. 

The idea for the EP came from Jamaal’s reflections after the release of his debut album The Lover’z Spectrum (2023). As he posted on his Instagram page, the idea for the collective came from a sense of musical purposelessness, coupled with the importance of artists like Braxton Bateman who helped him to find joy in creating: “I turned that moment into a series of open sessions where I reached out to anyone I genuinely respected in the art of music to just create for the sake of creating and have real conversations about life and what’s missing in music.” 

From there, he and Dewalt began to host studio sessions with anyone willing to create in person. The sessions — the first of which was with Charlotte R&B shapeshifter Cyanca — had no agenda aside from making the music that felt organic to the moment. When they invited Benjamin Burdon, Marschaleine, and Dexter Jordan, the session felt “perfect” according to Jamaal. “Everything was super organic.” 

After eight months of in-person sessions, studio debates about the state of music, and deep study of the R&B archive, the WhoNoz collective, as well as a debut EP, began to take shape. Jamaal knew he wanted to evoke an earlier time in R&B without feeling dated. “I just think that was a period of time when musicians weren't lazy, and artists weren't lazy,” says Jamaal.

“I think over time, especially now, we're in an era where it's almost not even laziness, they just think they're supposed to do this thing. Because there's a formula that works.”

With sound-sculpting assistance from Charlotte polymath Nxgxl, Jamaal and Dewalt threw that contemporary formula out the window. None of the five tracks on the debut EP are under three minutes, an increasing rarity in the streaming era. Instead, the producers take their time on songs, like “Luv!,” the EP’s opener. A soaring intro and outro with an extended bridge bracket Marschaleine’s rueful ruminations on love’s unsteady footholds. 

As the drums fade out on “Luv!,” Marschaleine’s improvisations are coupled with an intergalactic string section that pushes the listener out into the ether, before immediately enveloping them in the drippy, space-age beat of the EP’s first single, “Killing Me Softly.” The ballad finds Dexter Jordan, Benjamin Burdon and Marschaleine grappling with dizzying, all-consuming love, taking variations on the Fugees 1996 hit of the same name (itself inspired by Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly With His Song”). 

The pining of the first two tracks turns into a bitter retrospective by “Bullet,” the midpoint of the EP. Care Ausar’s lyrical flourishes comprise a love-turned-sour letter to a jilted lover:“Playing me like I’m last/ had me running laps, like I ain’t the best/ I’m going to show your ass, now you’re trying to double back.” The beautifully spiteful narrative is buttressed by the song’s bridge, which builds energy in its repetition at the end of the track. Dewalt, who has a background in the church, intentionally cut the style of Pharrell’s early-aughts hooks with the power of the gospel refrain. As Jamaal puts it, “You’re supposed to take it somewhere else. That’s what the bridge is for.” 

That “somewhere” that Jamaal references is “Lookin’ 4,” on which a luxurious  string overture intro dissolves into the song’s sparing, minimalistic electric guitar riff. The Timbaland-era opening sets up .Smitty to continue Ausar’s reflections on love lost: “Thought we had the moon and the stars,” she sings dolefully, “but you had other plans.” 

The EP doesn’t conclude with the  bite of love lost, however. The ultimate track, which served as the second single for the EP, tips its hat to one of hip-hop’s greatest love songs, Common’s “The Light.” Durham rapper Kaleel Carpé explores a vulnerable hip-hop intimacy between Marschaleine’s hooks, at times quoting directly from the source material before weaving his own: “To tell the truth, I’ve never had a love, love, love like this/ gotta be something for me to write this/ Queen, I can sense it in your spirit/ I’m ready for whenever I’ll be there in a minute if you’re with it.” 

For Jamaal, a student of Dilla’s repertoire, this kind of posturing was important to carry through to the EP if he was going to try to resurrect the classic hip-hop/R&B crossover genre of the late 1990s. “I like to make music that caters to women,” he says.

“As far as mainstream music goes, I think people are scared to make something that women just like in general.” 

Indeed, though Carpé’s voice is one of the only heterosexual male-oriented narratives that we get in detail on the EP, it delicately foregrounds the feminine in its approach. Rather than rapping from the position of masculine craving, Carpé examines his love interest’s interiority, thinking aloud about what she likes, needs, and desires. His love is affectionate, tender, and even playful: “Got a dimple in your left side cheek/ a little southern twang when you speak… those details is everything.” 

It’s this kind of detailed attention to the distinctive notes of 90s and 00s R&B that makes WhoNoz’s debut EP special, in an age in which trending R&B is so often narrated from the male gaze. It’s clear that Jamaal and Dewalt have taken their time to internalize not just the sonic themes but the songwriting craft of the music that they venerate. The duo has hopes for a full LP next year, featuring more of this focus on classic love songs in lieu of the club records that dominate today’s charts. 

As Jamaal posted on Instagram when he announced the EP’s release, “Life imitates art and art is about creating the beauty in what’s missing.” By pulling through what’s missing — male longing, feminine interiority, lengthy bridges, and intentional soundscapes, to name a few — WhoNoz does more than simply repeat the tropes of the past out of rote nostalgia. Across 21 minutes, What Happened To Pluto? makes the case that for today’s audiences, the creative echoes of the previous generation are still as vibrantly sonorous, and relevant, as ever.

Tyler Bunzey is an educator and music journalist who's covered queer pop, R&B, and more for places like CLTure and QC Nerve. He runs the Cultural Studies major program for Johnson C. Smith University. He can be found on Twitter at @t_bunzey.