UK R&B: Queer Politics and Identity.
- Kyratye from shewritestooloud & Zhakiya Sowah
- Sep 25
- 15 min read
Zhaki and I both position ourselves not only as consumers, but as enthusiasts deeply invested in queer R&B specifically. This article was born out of our shared passion, not just for the music we reference here, but also for the cultural progression it represents. Our collaboration felt intuitive, rooted in a desire to produce a piece of significance while also offering recognition to the queer community for its vital contributions to culture.
We journey the origins of British R&B and queer music as a countercultural phenomenon. Here we explore the nuance of queer R&B as a cultural innovation, examining how gendered systems inform the reception of these artists and the broader social ideological perceptions of queerness, sexuality and romance. Our analysis also accounts for the politics of colourism and classism, which continue to shape hierarchies within the music industry. We ask: Who is deemed marketable, and why? Who is permitted the freedom of sexual expression in music and beyond? And how does today’s emergence of queer R&B reflect our current cultural realities?
BRITISH R&B AND THE EMERGENCE OF QUEER R&B
The development of R&B as a cultural product in the UK maintains its roots across the pond in the US. The legacy of blues and black musicality is truly remarkable. Romantic nationalism describes the character of British R&B that aims to curate sounds around the British experience and identity, drawing on core imagery. The recent rise in popularity of queer R&B artists KWN and Sasha Keable marks a progressive shift in cultural attitudes, challenging dominant heteronormative storylines. Sasha’s rich soulful tonality as she sings about exes getting ‘bottles at Mayfair’ and ‘nightbuses to Nunhead’ transcends boundaries of the American experience of R&B and builds a narrative about sapphic love and relationships on the streets of London. This reflects a newfound authenticity Sasha has discovered upon acknowledging a queer identity, which she channels through her new music.
KWN’s melodic innovations make us all wish we were also in the ‘back of the club’. We have watched her blossom as an artist on TikTok, empowered by fans who truly appreciate the art of ‘yearning’. Her musicality is characterised by sexy and sensual sounds that encourage listeners to embrace their inner sexuality, have fun and make us wanna ‘paint our nails just the way she likes them’. The unapologetic vulgarity of her lyrics feels truly empowering, given that expressions of sexual agency remain politically policed and are largely reserved for heterosexual men. In music, straight men are often allowed to creatively articulate their sexuality and desires, which remain predicated on the presumed complicity of women. Furthermore, historically straight women themselves, such as Lil Kim and Foxy brown to Cardi B and Meg The Stallion, continue to face disproportionate scrutiny when expressing their sexual autonomy. Sasha and KWN’s honesty reflects a monumental personal and public affirmation of sexual fluidity.
Both artists allow consumers to reimagine romance and enjoy sounds that challenge traditional gendered dynamics of yearning. Taking up the space they rightfully deserve, KWN and Sasha have curated bodies of work that reflect societal progression, with a growing celebration of queer artistry and contribution to music. Following in the mighty footsteps of Frank Ocean, who, as Kehlani references, was a pivotal mechanism in empowering more honest work from queer artists, we have truly come far.
Queer musical expression has led to sonic innovations and experimentations. With artists collaborating and combining dynamic sounds, building soundtracks to the queer experience, we acknowledge the importance of this representation in popular culture. Queer music, by virtue of challenging heteronormative frameworks, inverts our gendered theories of love and romance, presenting them as an intrinsic mode of identity and resistance.
THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IS COLOURIST
In the 1990s and 2000s, R&B was entrenched in colourism that meant lighter-skinned or racially ambiguous Black artists were routinely treated as more ‘marketable’ than their darker-skinned peers. This reflected broader Eurocentric beauty hierarchies that called back to the early formation of pop music. The foundation of pop music is deeply entangled with minstrelsy, a genre rooted in the appropriation and parody of Black music forms by white performers. Minstrel shows in the 19th and early 20th centuries codified racial stereotypes, positioning Black music forms as both exotic and subservient, whilst generating profit for white artists. This history shaped the way popular music classified and valued Black artistry: sounds produced by white performers were often deemed “mainstream” or “sophisticated,” while the same techniques performed by Black musicians were racialised as “raw” or “urban.” This historical lineage persists in contemporary pop and R&B, informing how marketing, aesthetic norms, and genre boundaries continue to privilege whiteness, commodify Black creativity, and obscure the cultural origins of musical innovation.
Colourism continues to structure the field of UK R&B as a system of aesthetic and economic valuation where skin tone operates as embodied cultural capital that confers visibility and symbolic legitimacy to some artists while excluding others. In a market that still looks to the U.S. as its infrastructural centre, lightness and racial ambiguity are routinely coded as ‘portable’ assets with transatlantic appeal. This leads to lighter-skinned artists becoming industry-ready signifiers of mainstream palatability.
This works through two connected processes. First, visual and promotional practices enforce symbolic violence: whitewashing, lighting choices, and so-called “neutral” design erase race while hiding colourist gatekeeping. This is evidenced in choices about magazine covers, spokespeople, and media visibility that reproduce Eurocentric taste hierarchies. Second, sonic rebranding domesticates Blackness: sounds labelled as “urban” or “too Black” are recoded as acoustic, soulful, or sophisticated to fit market-friendly frames, extracting Black innovation and repackaging it as more palatable. I think of Jouelzy’s critique of Snoh Alegra and her restyling of Sade’s artistry. Jouelzy’s reading is useful here as a mini case study: an artist whose public image is carefully managed to appear racially indistinct. The ambiguity lends credibility to her artistry and earns her the labels “cinematic” and “soulful.” Additionally, cosigns from powerful industry figures such as Drake and Prince, who notably have been accused of colourism, function as signifiers that translate Black-origin sounds into a form that markets find non-threatening. Those endorsements and visual codes perform a kind of seal of approval that domesticate and slow the audible edges of Black innovation.
Again, I have to stress that historical context matters and pop’s minstrel-influenced appropriation set a precedent for racialised categorisation. Today, the conversation centres around decisions about who counts as “pop” versus “R&B”. Discourse that is often about race, not sound. Contemporary discussions of “authenticity” or “experimentation” often erase the Black cultural work behind these sounds. The outcome is a field where lightness, market-friendly queerness, and perceived sophistication are rewarded, while darker-skinned, working-class, or marginal queer performers must create alternative networks to gain visibility and legitimacy.
Queer aesthetics intersect with these processes: desirability politics favour soft-masc and femme, light-skinned bodies as legible forms of queerness in R&B, while darker-skinned queer artists face compounded penalties of featurism, misogyny, fatphobia, etc. I was scrolling on Twitter and came across Khalid’s teaser for his new single ‘Out of Body." A mere 14 seconds has caused passionate discourse around desirability politics and colourism in R&B.
The visuals assert Khalid’s queer identity following his public coming-out in November 2024 after being outed. It was interesting that many people from the Black queer community read the move as performative, whilst others viewed it as a positive step for Black queer artists in a heteronormative industry.
Interestingly, Khalid’s sensual body contact is read as overtly sexual, causing commentators to hit back, highlighting how similar gestures from light-skinned openly gay artists like Destin Conrad are coded as affectionate. This discourse reflects broader desirability politics in R&B, where light-skinned, soft-masculine, or femme-presenting bodies are legible as queer in ways that confer social and market acceptance. Dark-skinned artists, in contrast, encounter compounded penalties: their sexuality is hypersexualised, their aesthetics scrutinised, and their intimacy framed as performative or transgressive.
Before his outing, when Khalid’s branding was more neutral and read as heteronormative, his artistry navigated mainstream R&B with relative ease. Now, with his queer identity foregrounded, reception pivots to scrutinising his looks, sex appeal and aesthetic. It’s clear to me that this is an indication of how gay men and queer artists face harsher, desirability-driven pressures, especially when representation is expected to embody a pinnacle of attractiveness. This is sharpened by the irony that Khalid was outed by a lighter-skinned, conventionally attractive musician who later dismissed the snippet as lacking sex appeal.
Similar dynamics can be seen in the UK: artists such as MNEK, Darkoo and Amaria BB occupy a landscape where Black queer visibility and success are mediated by racialised aesthetics, while phenotypically white or lighter-skinned queer artists gain disproportionate recognition working in Black-derived musical forms. Sam Smith’s career exemplifies how white queer artists are read as “universal” and “pop” even when their sound rests on Black vocal and gospel traditions, while Sasha Keable’s position in R&B, neo-soul and alternative Black British spaces and navigation of Chicana and Black aesthetic lineages, produces work that signals cultural rootedness while appealing to market sensibilities. Her artistry shows how cultural lineage shapes relatability, authenticity and market appeal. These cases foreground the ethical and sociological questions facing artists who leverage coded Blackness, queer markers or culturally specific styles: how to acknowledge and credit the labour of marginalised communities while navigating commercial incentives that often reward erasure.
The question of how much of Sasha’s identity is open to public analysis is complex: her self-presentation is both personal and performative, yet public discourse often treats cultural identity as a resource to be interrogated, appropriated, or consumed, highlighting enduring tensions between visibility and exploitation.
SEXUAL EXPRESSION: WE ALL OPERATE UNDER THE SYSTEM OF GENDER
It is imperative to recognise how this emergence in bold, queer R&B functions as a critical pulse within the broader project of reimagining sexuality. The hegemonic nature of heteronormativity discourages critical interrogation with one's sexual identity, enforcing unquestionable submission to dominant narratives and rhetorics. This is ideologically reinforced across society, particularly in the media. The music industry and more specifically R&B have historically catered to heterosexual audiences, elaborating on traditional concepts of desire through sexually explicit lyricism. The adage that ‘sex sells’ becomes more evident when sexuality is framed through women’s submission to heterosexual male desire. Erotic heterosexual scripts are rendered palatable, particularly in music and culture, while operating within a broader patriarchal system that demonises queer sexuality. However, statistics state that the population and more specifically the younger generation are significantly more likely to identify as LGB, with around 10.4% of those aged 16-24 identifying as such in 2022. Therefore, queer representation becomes and remains increasingly important, where erasure must be challenged.
An examination of how queerness has been marginalised in music yields ironic findings. For instance, in the 1920s and 1930s, much of the sexually explicit music of cabaret was written by queer individuals, yet it predominantly addressed heterosexual desire. Where heteronormativity in music served to neglect queer audiences and consumers, queer expression fundamentally contributed to the empowerment of sexual expression. The influential power of queer expression underscores its critical role in fostering cultural innovation. Efforts led by the LGBTQIA+ community to advocate for and embody fluidity have empowered many to critically examine their own understanding of sexual identity. As a polysemic concept, queerness has enabled both community members and many others to challenge dominant, oppressive cultural norms, thereby revolutionising the pursuit of selfhood and sexual exploration. Challenging traditional binaries of sexuality and affirming the legitimacy of fluidity is a critical impact that emerges from queer expression and queer R&B.
Cultural and patriarchal norms frequently inhibit individuals from defying heteronormative boundaries. More specifically, women are also disempowered from openly embodying and expressing themselves sexually. Rather, sexual identity formation is constructed around conservative rhetoric that reserves sex for the private sphere. Where sexual identity and sexuality are shielded from introspection and critical examination, we risk neglecting the pursuit of authentic desire and the exploration of sexual fluidity. The consumption of queer R&B music thus functions as a mechanism through which individuals can explore their own sexuality. The emergence of bold queer expression in R&B, through artists such as KWN, Sasha Keable and Destin Conrad, more generally, not only resists dominant norms but reshapes cultural imagination, influencing people beyond just the LGBTQ+ community.
The statement and critical observations above serve as a recognition of the queer community and the emergence of new queer R&B artists. Whilst celebrating the contributions of queer R&B artists and their profound cultural impact, it is also necessary to critique the complexities of exploring sexual relationships. Recognising that sexuality exists on a spectrum highlights that expression is diverse and democratised. Thus, defying compulsory heternormative boundaries and engaging intimately with others requires broad respect for sexual identities and a coherent understanding of the limits of curiosity. It is evident that exploring fluidity ought to be ethical.
Examining the context of sexual exploration invites us to explore gendered attitudes towards homoerotic relations and the oversexualisation of sapphic dynamics. Whilst sexual fluidity and exploration may be more socially acceptable amongst women, for gay men, this is not necessarily an accurate descriptor of their experience. The character of homophobia towards queer men is driven by more perceived threat to traditional sex roles. Conversely, homophobia towards lesbian women more frequently manifests as excessive eroticisation and fetishisation, positioning sapphic desire primarily to satisfy heterosexual men.
The pornography industry capitalises on this prejudicial phenomena, and the subsequent ideological overspill informs reserved attitudes towards sexual fluidity and exploration for everyone. More discursively speaking, whilst curating an agenda for this piece, Zhaki and I struggled to think of male queer R&B artists, which I think speaks more broadly to our attitudes towards queer women vs queer men taking up space and championing queer expression.
Queerness fundamentally is a movement that centres freedom and resistance. Thus, in all its forms should allow for and empower us within and beyond the community to examine the binaries that inform our identities. Championing queer expression recognises how the movement, its culture, and the individuals within it have revolutionised approaches to self-exploration and sexual fluidity. We are reminded that this can exist in a plurality of forms and that the queer community is an imperative culture as we know it.
WE CAN'T TALK ABOUT BRITAIN, WITHOUT TALKING ABOUT CLASS
The trajectory of Black British music highlights how class, race, and sexuality have historically shaped both access and legitimacy within the industry, creating conditions that continue to influence contemporary queer R&B. Britfunk, emerging in the early 1980s, was rooted in decades of local soul, disco, and funk scenes, often constrained by under-resourced studios, institutional racism, and limited promotional infrastructure. In cities like Liverpool, Black diasporic communities nurtured hybrid musical forms, embedding local experience into a globalised sound. By the mid-1970s, studio-based projects, touring circuits, and televised talent shows demonstrated the commercial potential of Black British music, paving the way for Britfunk bands to assert themselves. Crucially, Britfunk’s polished, hybridised aesthetics operated as a classed strategy: when institutional doors were closed, presentation became a form of currency, enabling artists to navigate racial hierarchies and assert creative legitimacy. At the same time, its performative openness allowed artists to experiment with gender expression, creating coded spaces for queer identities to emerge through music, style, and stage performance.
I’ve come to believe these strategies of visibility continue to shape contemporary Black queer R&B. Aesthetic self-styling, polished presentation, and careful branding continue to shape which artists can access recording opportunities, venues, and professional networks, highlighting how class mediates visibility in the industry. Yet the same strategies that grant recognition also amplify precarity, requiring investment in scarce resources while structural support remains uneven. By tracing the lineage from Britfunk to today’s queer R&B, we can see how structural constraints, such as intersecting across race, class, and sexuality, both restrict and inspire artists. Class mediates not only access, but also the ways in which queer identities are legible and legitimised, shaping hybrid musical forms and alternative spaces that assert visibility, creative agency, and the ongoing negotiation of belonging in a stratified industry.
FUTURE FORECASTING
Kyratye from Shewritestooloud:
As writers but also consumers of queer R&B, future forecasting offers us the opportunity to conclude and project our observations across the scene, whilst wishfully advocating for the space these queer artists deserve. Positive progression takes the objective of having more queer R&B artists to champion. This would include diversification of queer expression outside the conventional femme and masc gendered binaries. We want to see the community embody queerness in all its nuance, accounting for all intersections. Following from this, the emergence of the more explicitly conscious artists and consumers is also important.
Juxtapositionally, I think the art is meant to be enjoyed without excessive analysis to an extent, but the pulsating balance of critical examination and visceral enjoyment should exist. While the mediums employed to critique and the nature of analysis can be flawed, especially within the digital space, it offers opportunities for the development of parasocial relations and exchange of constructive engagement between artist and consumer. Social media has amplified the accessibility we have to artists, and unfortunately, with extreme social polarity and distinction of experience between celebrity and average consumer, consumers are often left disempowered. The increasing disserving social and economic conditions drive many disempowered individuals as consumers to project their just frustrations towards individuals they can access, whether that be artists on social media, content creators or celebrities; rather than specifically to use their agency to organise, advocate and address political leaders. This nature of engagement on social media is discursively acknowledged as ‘hate’, which I feel captures when these disempowered users wrongfully express negative thoughts and attitudes to those online. However, amongst this, those expressing legitimate critique of art or content are also branded as haters, and this meaningful dialogue between creator/artist and consumer dissipates. Thus, the emergence of the more conscious consumer and artists should allow for the communication of opinion to be more informed and critical, whereby both parties possess healthy ways to manage and address socio-political discontent and use engagement with each other as a means to communicate meaningful messages and genuine critique.
Adversely, we would discourage over-critiquing art to the extent that one destroys the visceral ability to enjoy music for what it is. Again, balance here is crucial!
I urge us all to advocate for journalism not only as a discipline, but as a vital tool for archiving, documenting, and analysing cultural transformation. Journalists play a critical role in shaping culture, and fostering intentional spaces for critique enables us to engage with art more consciously and meaningfully. As Journalists, Zhaki and I are committed to championing marginalised voices, ensuring that journalism serves as a platform for perspectives too often stifled by dominant systems. In this way, journalism becomes not only a record of cultural change but also an act of advocacy, amplifying voices, confronting inequities, and expanding the scope of who gets to shape the narrative. By empowering stronger, more thoughtful, and more inclusive journalism, we strengthen our collective ability to understand, challenge, and reimagine the cultural conversations of our time.
Zhakiya Sowah from KhadsArk:
As I watch UK queer R&B evolve, I feel both excitement and unease. The genre is moving forward toward a moment where queerness can be explored sonically in all its layers and complexities. Romance, heartbreak, the cost of living, being rich, personal stories, any and every theme! It can fully become the key buzzword, ‘marketable’. That visibility can be liberating, but when it comes to marginalised identities, the pendulum usually swings far towards commodification and even further to exploitation. Kehlani can lead with her identity and flourish, but I question if the infrastructures are sound enough to support darker-skinned queer artists without exploiting them on top of the tax of being a musician under a record label.
As a Brit, it excites me to see artists like Darkoo and Amaria BB flourish, especially as they operate in genres that belong to extremely homophobic cultures. They show the world that Black queer expression resonates globally and intersectionally. Darkoo, finding success in Nigeria with cosigns from industry legends such as 9ice, is revolutionary. I wonder if her upbringing in the West affords her a nuanced acceptance in a society that doesn’t seem to support its homegrown queer artists?
As Black British R&B becomes more globalised and as all these questions turn in my mind, my one hope is that better journalism rises with this moment. There is a need for sharper questions about representations and ethics of Black queer identity in the rise of conservatism, both in the UK and the US. As a straight woman writing about queer R&B, I have to remain conscious of the privilege and limits of my perspective. I recognise that my role is to amplify and contextualise rather than speak over the experiences of queer artists. With that being said, the future of queer R&B, to me, hinges on whether we can hold space for authenticity in narratives surrounding the Black British queer experience. As the visibility increases, there has to be a dedication to this art form remaining in the hands of the artists pioneering it.
Conclusion:
In bringing this piece to a close, I feel even more convinced of why this work matters to me. Writing alongside Kiara allowed us not only to deepen our understanding of queer R&B but also to affirm our commitment to telling stories that centre marginalised voices. By tracing the lineage of UK R&B, we are reminded that queer Black creativity is not a new phenomenon. It’s part of a long, ongoing journey for visibility, autonomy, and joy. For me, this article has been both an act of research and recognition of the artists who challenge heteronormativity and resist restrictive moulds. In reflecting on these histories and the contemporary moment, I feel inspired to keep questioning the hierarchies that are detrimental to black creativity.
As Kiara and I are Black female writers who are also listeners, we occupy a dual role that comes with its own responsibilities. Our position is not neutral in the choices we make about what to amplify, how to frame it, and which narratives are privileged. In analysing and celebrating queer R&B, our enthusiasm must be paired with critical consciousness. We took the stance of rejecting the reproduction of the same hierarchies of race, gender, and class that artists themselves are working to dismantle. This means interrogating our own biases and contributing past passive consumption. For me, and I’m sure Kiara would agree, writing about music is an act of stewardship as much as critique. We have a duty to reflect honestly, contextualise ethically and contribute to a culture where artists’ innovations are recognised alongside the communities that make them possible.
References:
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