70 Years of Crossover — Part 2: How White Artists Have Navigated the Modern Era of R&B/Hip-Hop—(1991-present)
To review Part 1 (1956-1990), please click here.
(April 2, 2026) – R&B has always been rooted in Black artistry—but its charts have never been exclusively Black.
In the 70 years since the rock and roll era began, white or non-Black artists have consistently crossed into the genre, sometimes scoring massive hits, other times simply making a dent. This recap reviews each year since 1956 to determine the extent to which these artists truly broke through—and what they had to do to be “invited to the cookout.”
Specifically, I went year by year through Billboard’s R&B charts dating back to 1956–the first full year of the rock-and-roll era and a milestone 70th anniversary milepost—and identified the highest-ranking song by a white or non-Black recording act on each year’s final recap chart. Not the biggest R&B hit overall—but the one by non-Black musicians that outperformed any other non-Black act that year within the genre. For this Part 2 (1991-2025), all data is from Billboard’s year-end R&B/Hip-Hop rankings or, where appropriate, a review of a particular year’s weekly charts.
Last week’s Part 1 (1956-90) covered the first 35 years and is available by clicking here. This week’s review covers the last 35 years, where modernized technology allowed more accurate charting of the hits and where hip-hop’s dominance changed the R&B landscape significantly. White rappers emerged in numbers greater than ever before, with artists like Eminem and Jack Harlow challenging and in some cases shattering all previous notions about hip-hop.
So, keep reading to see this recap of the highest charting songs by white acts on the R&B charts each year from 1991-2025.
📅 1991
🎤 Artist: Color Me Badd
🎵 Song: “I Wanna Sex You Up”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 35
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Color Me Badd was a predominantly white, mixed-race quartet formed in Oklahoma City. Although lineups have changed and the group remains active, their biggest hits occurred with the original foursome and their debut album C.M.B., which included “I Wanna Sex You Up,” the song originally boosted by its inclusion in the New Jack City soundtrack. CMB had an odd early chart history: their first single only topped the soul chart, their second (“I Adore Mi Amore”) topped both the soul and the pop charts, while their third (“All 4 Love”) only topped the pop list.
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📅 1992
🎤 Artist: Lisa Stansfield
🎵 Song: “All Woman”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 11
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Lisa Stansfield, the very talented British soul songstress, became the first woman to twice outrank all other white performers on the R&B/Hip-Hop charts when her third No. 1 single, “All Woman,” dominated the rankings in 1992, just two years after “All Around the World” had done the same. “All Woman” was Stansfield’s “Superwoman” for the ‘90s, with the same tale of relationship neglect and female resilience that powered Karyn White’s big hit from three years earlier.
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📅 1993
🎤 Artist: Snow
🎵 Song: “Informer”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 67
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Canadian rapper Snow, born Darrin O’Brien in Toronto, had the biggest hit by a white act on the R&B/Hip-Hop charts in 1993. “Informer” used a blend of reggae fusion and hip-hop swag to weave a tale about the role of “informants” in criminal prosecutions. The non-sensical refrain, “a licky boom-boom down,” endeared it to listeners of both pop and R&B radio, which contributed to its No. 1 pop peak and its No. 10 high on the weekly R&B/Hip-Hop charts, enough for a year-end ranking of No. 67 on the latter list.
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📅 1994
🎤 Artist: Color Me Badd
🎵 Song: “Time and Chance”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 51
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Oklahoma’s doo-wop wonders Color Me Badd enlisted hip-hop producer DJ Pooh to solidify their street cred with the title track from their sophomore album, Time and Chance. But due to what was largely considered a disjointed effort, it would be CMB’s last top ten R&B chart hit (also No. 23 pop) and–at No. 51 overall for 2014–the last time they’d outrank all other predominantly white acts in a year-end recap.
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📅 1995
🎤 Artist: Jon B. ft. Babyface
🎵 Song: “Someone to Love”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 18
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Jon B., born Jonathan David Buck in Providence, R.I., is arguably the second biggest R&B act from the country’s smallest state, behind Jeffrey Osborne (formerly of L.T.D.). But it was Buck who held ‘90s R&B listeners captive with his smooth crooning on songs like “Someone to Love,” featuring Babyface. That tune featured a very Babyface-sounding Jon B., and its No. 18 finish on Billboard’s year-end R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart made it the biggest soul song by a white act that year.
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📅 1996
🎤 Artist: George Michael
🎵 Song: “Jesus to a Child”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: n/a
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
The years 1996 and ’97 were the first in which a song by a white act did not place in Billboard’s or Cashbox’s year-end R&B ranking since 1973. But George Michael’s “Jesus to a Child”–his tribute to a lover who’d succumbed to AIDS–was among a small group of such songs that charted moderately during those lean times. Reminiscent in style of earlier hits like “Careless Whisper” and “A Different Corner,” “Jesus” reached No. 22 on the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop chart and was the best performing song that year by a white artist.
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📅 1997
🎤 Artist: Robyn
🎵 Song: “Do You Know (What It Takes)”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: n/a
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
In 1997, Swedish singer Robyn became the latest white female to outrank her counterparts on the R&B/Hip-Hop year-end charts with her first top ten pop hit, “Do You Know (What It Takes).” In another year when white acts didn’t have much crossover R&B success, “Do You Know” only reached No. 33 on the weekly R&B list, but its four months on the chart were enough to land it on this list. Robyn thus became the fourth woman – and the third from Europe after Lulu and Stansfield – to earn this distinction.
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📅 1998
🎤 Artist: Jon B.
🎵 Song: “They Don’t Know”/ “Are U Still Down”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 2
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Jon B. nearly had the biggest R&B/Hip-Hop song of 1998 with his two-sided single “They Don’t Know” and “Are U Still Down,” the latter posthumously featuring rapper Tupac Shakur. The record finished 1998 as the second-biggest R&B hit of the year behind Next’s “Too Close,” which also ranked as the year’s biggest pop hit. The success of Jon B.’s hit also made him the third white act – after Lisa Stansfield and Color Me Badd – to own the year’s biggest R&B/Hip-Hop song by a white artist twice during the 1990s.
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📅 1999
🎤 Artist: Jennifer Lopez
🎵 Song: “If You Had My Love”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 46
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
In a year when Latino artists Ricky Martin, Marc Anthony, and Enrique Iglesias were dominating the pop scene, it was J-Lo who also had significant crossover success on the R&B/Hip-Hop side with her debut single, “If You Had My Love.” The song reached No. 6 on the weekly R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts and finished as the year’s 46th biggest hit there. More importantly, it began a consistent multi-year streak of major R&B/Hip-Hop victories for the Bronx-born actress and singer.
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📅 2000
🎤 Artist: Eminem
🎵 Song: “The Real Slim Shady”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 56
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Eminem is the highest certified rapper in history, according to the RIAA, with multiple diamond certifications each signifying 10 million-plus in sales. That’s a status he wouldn’t have attained without successfully navigating audiences of multiple races and ethnicities, which makes it baffling that the only year the icon ranked as the best charting white artist on the R&B/Hip-Hop Songs year-end list was in 2000 with the No. 56 placement of “The Real Slim Shady,” the alter-ego he symbolically buried nearly 25 years later with the album The Death of Slim Shady (Coup De Grace).
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📅 2001
🎤 Artist: Dream
🎵 Song: “He Loves U Not”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 35
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
This teenage pop quartet Dream from Los Angeles was signed to Diddy’s Bad Boy Records in 2000 and marked a major departure from the label’s otherwise R&B- and gangsta-rap-heavy roster. Think: Christina Aguilera times four, with all the blue eyeliner and mid-riff-bearing outfits to match. Still, “He Loves U Not” was a No. 15 hit on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs (and No. 2 on the Hot 100), making it one of the biggest crossover hits of 2001, and the biggest hit on the R&B/Hip-Hop chart by a white act with its No. 35 year-end ranking. That latter feat made Dream (not to be confused with R&B artist The-Dream) the first and still only female group to lead this list.
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📅 2002
🎤 Artist: Jennifer Lopez ft. Ja Rule
🎵 Song: “Ain’t It Funny”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 34
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Jennifer Lopez became the second woman to repeat as the top charting non-Black artist on the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Songs year-end list, after Lisa Stansfield (and, oddly, before Teena Marie). J-Lo’s recurring partnership with rappers like LL Cool J and Ja Rule endeared her to the genre’s fans and helped make the “Flava in Ya Ear”-sampling “Ain’t It Funny” the winner for 2002, beating out *NSYNC’s “Gone” (No. 75) and multiple hits by Eminem (“Cleanin’ Out My Closet,” No. 77, and “Without Me,” No. 79) in the process.
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📅 2003
🎤 Artist: Jennifer Lopez ft. LL Cool J
🎵 Song: “All I Have”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 42
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Ironically, with R&B and Hip-Hop artists dominating the crossover scene in the early aughts, very few white artists managed to do the reverse on the R&B/Hip-Hop charts. J-Lo, Justin Timberlake (who’d just left *NSYNC), and Eminem were, for the second consecutive year, the most-played and most-consumed non-Black acts in the genre. Lopez—at No. 41 with “All I Have”—was the highest-ranked non-Black act on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs annual recap for the second straight year and the third time overall, placing her in a then-first-place tie with KC (of KC & the Sunshine Band), and Paul McCartney for the most annual leaders among white acts within the genre.
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📅 2004
🎤 Artist: Teena Marie ft. Baby
🎵 Song: “Still in Love”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 56
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
The Ivory Queen of Soul Mary Christine Brockert, better known to millions as Teena Marie, was back on the soul scene in 2004 with “Still in Love.” It was the first single from her comeback album La Dona, recorded for Cash Money Records. While the chart entry for “Still in Love” listed label owner Bryan “Baby” Williams as a featured act, he did not actually appear on the track vocally. “Still in Love” peaked on the weekly R&B/Hip-Hop chart at No. 23, becoming Marie’s first top 30 hit in over 14 years, and making her the highest-ranking white act on the year-end list (No. 56) for the second time in her career (“Square Biz,” 1981). It also gave her the widest span of leading white acts on the R&B charts with 23 years, a window that was surpassed when a certain ex-Beatle made a mini comeback in 2015.
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📅 2005
🎤 Artist: Gwen Stefani
🎵 Song: “Hollaback Girl”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 55
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Not only was former ska-pop band No Doubt vocalist Gwen Stefani the most unlikely artist to grace the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart in 2005 with her cheerleading anthem, “Hollaback Girl,” she was also the only white artist to land on the genre’s year-end 100-song ranking for that year. It also marked the fifth year in a row in which the top-charting white act on the R&B/Hip-Hop songs list was female, the longest such streak in the chart’s archives. Stefani has had six R&B/Hip-Hop Song chart entries, ironically none of which is “The Sweet Escape,” the bouncy doo-wop anthem she shared with ‘00s chart king Akon in ’07.
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📅 2006
🎤 Artist: Justin Timberlake ft. T.I.
🎵 Song: “My Love”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: n/a
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
After a few near misses earlier in the decade as the year’s big winner among white acts, Justin Timberlake had the highest R&B/Hip-Hop charting song among those artists for 2006 with “My Love.” Thanks to a feature by T.I., the song spent a week at No. 2 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart (and reached No. 1 on the Hot 100) but, due to its late timing, failed to make the year-end list, which Billboard had truncated to only 50 positions that year. It held on long enough to make the following year’s rankings at No. 34. “My Love” was the follow-up to “Sexyback,” the song that drew the ire of Prince for Timberlake’s claim of resurrecting a sexiness in music that Prince felt never left.
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📅 2007
🎤 Artist: Robin Thicke
🎵 Song: “Lost Without U”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 1
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Say what you want about Robin Thicke, but the singer/songwriter was an R&B staple during the ten years spanning 2006-15. In fact, his 18 Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart entries more than doubled his Hot 100 output (8). The breakout hit among them was “Lost Without U,” the song that not only was the highest-ranking song by a white act on the year-end chart for 2007, but was the year’s biggest R&B hit, period, having topped the list for 11 weeks. It was only the second time a white act had achieved that feat (after Michael McDonald teamed with Patti LaBelle for 1986’s “On My Own”) and the first time one had done it solo without the accompaniment of another artist.
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📅 2008
🎤 Artist: Justin Timberlake duet w/ Beyonce
🎵 Song: “Until the End of Time”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 35
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Ex-*NSYNC singer Justin Timberlake has had 32 songs make the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. They span 20 years from 2002’s “Like I Love You” to 2022’s feature on Jack Harlow’s “Parent Trap.” That’s more than Teena Marie (28) and Robin Thicke (18). Does that make him one of the greatest blue-eyed-soul artists of all time? I’ll leave that for fans to debate, but it certainly doesn’t hurt his credentials. One of his biggest hits came via this very Prince-sounding duet with Beyonce, which, at No. 35, just edged out Robin Thicke’s “Magic” (at No. 37) as 2008’s biggest R&B/Hip-Hop hit by a white act.
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📅 2009
🎤 Artist: Robin Thicke
🎵 Song: “The Sweetest Love”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 75
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Robin Thicke came by his musical chops naturally as the son of actors Alan Thicke and Gloria Loring (the latter of whom had a No. 2 hit in the ‘80s with “Friends and Lovers”). Both his parents had musical backgrounds, having co-written the themes for 1980s sitcoms Diff’rent Strokes and The Facts of Life. Robin himself rose in the industry by having co-written songs for major artists like Michael Jackson, Christina Aguilera and Jordan Knight before getting his big singing break. “The Sweetest Love,” his seventh chart entry, debuted and peaked on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs in 2008, but hung on long enough in 2009 (33 chart weeks total) to rank as that year’s 75th biggest hit, the highest among white acts.
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📅 2010
🎤 Artist: Robin Thicke
🎵 Song: “Sex Therapy”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 10
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Mr. Thicke made it two years in a row and three out of four – just missing in 2008 – when his “Sex Therapy” ranked as 2010’s biggest R&B/Hip-Hop hit by a white act. The victory cemented him as an artist who’d regularly be “invited to the cookout” as he successfully battled fellow R&B crooners Maxwell, Trey Songs, Chris Brown and Usher for chart supremacy. “Sex Therapy” gave Thicke his second No. 1 R&B/Hip-Hop single and ranked No. 10 for the year.
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📅 2011
🎤 Artist: Adele
🎵 Song: “Rolling in the Deep”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: n/a
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Surprisingly, there were no white acts listed on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs year-end rankings for 2011, a year that saw very few such acts cross over. So, it took some deep digging – and a bit of judgment — for this researcher to determine what was likely that year’s best performer. It came down to Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep,” which only reached No. 61 but spent 20 weeks on the chart that year, and Robin Thicke’s “Love After War,” which debuted in October and rose to its No. 14 peak in January 2012. Given how late in the year Thicke’s hit charted, and how most of its impact was felt in 2012, I went with Adele’s classic.
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📅 2012
🎤 Artist: Robin Thicke
🎵 Song: “Love After War”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 43
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
See Adele’s entry above for the numbers on Thicke’s “Love After War,” which gave him four recap leaders among white acts in a six-year span on the R&B/Hip-Hop year-end list. The two off-years—2008 and 2011—could have easily been his as well, as both were photo-finishes with other acts. After the 2012 victory with “Love After War,” Thicke’s four wins ranked the highest among the acts on this list. All that would have been needed was for his biggest hit, 2013’s controversial “Blurred Lines,” to cap that year’s rankings to cement him as one of the greatest blue-eyed soul artists of all time, right?
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📅 2013
🎤 Artist: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis ft. Wanz
🎵 Song: “Thrift Shop”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 1
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
2013 was arguably Robin Thicke’s biggest year, but he was supplanted at the top of the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop year-end rankings by a new act out of Seattle named Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. Macklemore, the rapper born Benjamin Haggerty, and Lewis (the duo’s producer) scored out of the box with “Thrift Shop,” a novelty hit that benefited greatly from Billboard’s revised methodology where songs on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart matched their relative order on the Hot 100. While “Thrift Shop” and Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” topped both lists for months, it was “Thrift Shop” that won in the end, with “Blurred Lines” ranking second. It marked the third time that a white act had the top performing song of the year and the first time that the top four were all by white artists: 1. “Thrift Shop,” 2. “Blurred Lines,” 3. “Can’t Hold Us” (Macklemore & Ryan Lewis), and 4. “Suit & Tie” (Justin Timberlake ft. Jay-Z). Billboard’s Hot 100-duplicating math for its Hot R&B/Hip-Hop songs chart also made “Thrift Shop” the No. 1 song on the latter list for the entire decade.
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📅 2014
🎤 Artist: Iggy Azalea ft. Charli XCX
🎵 Song: “Fancy”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 3
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Charli XCX fans today might not recall that she once graced the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop songs as a featured act on Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy,” the rap tune that made its Australian rapper the highest-charting white act on Billboard’s year-end list for 2014 (and the highest-charting Australian act ever). Azalea, who counts among her influences Tupac Shakur, Beyonce, and Missy Elliott, scored four top ten hits — including a second No. 1 with “Black Widow” (ft. Rita Ora) — on the R&B/Hip-Hop chart in 2014, all of which came via collaborations with other artists. Azalea, like Macklemore and other artists, has had to battle accusations of cultural appropriation in recent years. It was a related backlash that likely made “Sally Walker” her last R&B/Hip-Hop chart entry in 2019.
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📅 2015
🎤 Artist: Paul McCartney (billed as Rihanna, Kanye West & Paul McCartney)
🎵 Song: “FourFiveSeconds”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 11
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
As a lead artist, Paul McCartney has had just four career Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs entries. All four came via equally billed collaborations with Black artists, and all four ended their respective years as the top-performing R&B/Hip-Hop hit by a white act in a lead role. That distinction ties him with Robin Thicke for having the most such leaders in the past 70 years, though very few would characterize Sir Paul as “blue-eyed soul.” The ex-Beatle’s 1.000 batting average here is also surprising in that 2015’s acoustic folk-pop arrangement for “FourFiveSeconds” arguably makes it the least soul-sounding in a list that includes the very schmaltzy “Ebony and Ivory,” “The Girl is Mine,” and “Say, Say, Say.” “Seconds” only reached No. 36 on the weekly R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart but topped the multi-metric Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart because that list uses the Hot 100’s formula. On “Seconds,” McCartney played the only instrument – an acoustic guitar – heard throughout the track, but he also co-wrote and co-produced what became his biggest hit of the 21st century.
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📅 2016
🎤 Artist: Alessia Cara
🎵 Song: “Here”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 9
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
In 2016, Canadian singer and songwriter Alessia Cara became the most recent female artist to cross over as the year’s highest-charting non-Black R&B/Hip-Hop artist with her introvert anthem, “Here,” a song about a very disinterested party attendee whose stand-offish attitude is superbly defended in the lyrics. “Here” was the only song by a white artist listed among 2016’s 100 biggest, as the decade’s earlier crossover acts (Robin Thicke, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Iggy Azalea) were all experiencing backlashes. The ten years post Cara’s reign mark the longest gap among white female acts since the 14 years that separated Lulu’s 1967 triumph and that of Teena Marie in ’81.
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📅 2017
🎤 Artist: Bruno Mars
🎵 Song: “That’s What I Like”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 1
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Superstar Bruno Mars, born Peter Gene Hernandez, is of Hawaiian origin. For those questioning his entry here, his mother is of Filipino and Spanish ancestry, while his father is Puerto Rican and Ashkenazi Jewish (with ancestral roots in Hungary and Ukraine). Mars had the best-performing single of 2017 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs with “That’s What I Like,” which made him the fourth non-Black lead act to finish with the year’s biggest hit, after Michael McDonald, Robin Thicke, and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. Mars would also own the chart’s biggest hit four years later as one-half of the duo Silk Sonic with “Leave the Door Open,” and is on pace to win again with the current No. 1 R&B/Hip-Hop tune (11 weeks at No. 1 as of this writing), “I Just Might” in 2026.
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📅 2018
🎤 Artist: Post Malone ft. Ty Dolla $ign
🎵 Song: “Psycho”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 4
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Post Malone, born Austin Richard Post in Syracuse, NY, is a rapper-turned-rocker-turned-country singer whose early forages into hip-hop earned him some of the genre’s biggest hits at the end of the 2010s. The first case-in-point was 2018’s “Psycho,” featuring Ty Dolla $ign, which topped Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and finished the year as the list’s fourth-biggest hit. It avenged the near-miss that Post had the prior year with “Congratulations,” featuring Quavo, which ranked as 2017’s eighth biggest hit and second among non-Black acts behind Bruno’s “That’s What I Like.”
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📅 2019
🎤 Artist: Post Malone ft. Swae Lee
🎵 Song: “Sunflower”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 2
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
In 2019, Posty was mostly competing with himself for this distinction. He continued his winning ways with “Sunflower” featuring Rae Sremmurd’s Swae Lee, and with his solo entry “Wow.” The two songs finished No. 2 and No. 4, respectively, on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart’s year-end ranking, tying a double top-five mark achieved by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis in 2013. “Sunflower” was yet another double-Number One on the R&B/Hip-Hop and Hot 100 rankings, and one of 47 entries Post had on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs from 2015-25. That list might have been even longer had Malone not pivoted to country music in 2023, beginning with the Morgan Wallen duet, “I Had Some Help.”
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📅 2020
🎤 Artist: Jack Harlow ft. DaBaby, Tory Lanez & Lil Wayne
🎵 Song: “What’s Poppin’”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 4
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Jackman Thomas Harlow, born in Louisville, KY, is the first artist whose hits have all occurred in the 2020s to grace this list — his first leader occurring with 2020’s “What’s Poppin’,” featuring Tory Lanez & Lil Wayne. That song peaked at No. 2 on both Hot R&B/Hip-Hop and Hot 100 songs, spending nearly a year on both charts, and finished 2020 as the year’s No. 4 hit, making it the first of three times Harlow would lead all white acts on a Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs year-end recap.
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📅 2021
🎤 Artist: Justin Bieber ft. Daniel Caesar & Giveon
🎵 Song: “Peaches”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 2
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Pop superstar Justin Bieber developed his R&B/Hip-Hop swag by way of his early (and now dubious) association with mentors like Sean “Diddy” Combs and Usher. So, the fact that the once teen heartthrob has scored 35 songs on the R&B/Hip-Hop chart, including two No. 1 hits, should come as no surprise to millennials and younger. His biggest hit on this chart as a lead act is “Peaches,” a No. 1 song for 7 weeks that landed as 2021’s second-biggest R&B/Hip-Hop hit behind Silk Sonic’s “Leave the Door Open.” Both songs squeaked by white rapper Masked Wolf’s “Astronaut in the Ocean,” which finished as the year’s third-biggest R&B/Hip-Hop chart hit.
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📅 2022
🎤 Artist: Jack Harlow
🎵 Song: “First Class”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 1
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Jack Harlow scored his second No. 1 hit as a lead artist with “First Class,” the hip-hop groove that borrowed from Fergie’s 2007 smash, “Glamorous” and spent ten weeks at No. 1 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs (as well as three weeks at the top of the Hot 100). Its performance on the R&B/Hip-Hop chart made it the biggest hit of the year and allowed Harlow to join an elite club of non-Black acts who’d earned that distinction, along with Michael McDonald, Robin Thicke, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, and Bruno Mars. It was also the ninth time in ten years where at least one non-Black act had finished in the year’s top ten on the R&B/Hip-Hop list.
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📅 2023
🎤 Artist: That Mexican OT, Paul Wall & DRODi
🎵 Song: “Johnny Dang”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 60
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Since 2016, only one year has failed to produce a song by a non-Black artist that ranked No. 11 or higher on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop’s year-end list. That was in 2023 when That Mexican OT, Paul Wall & Drodi teamed up for the No. 60 finisher, “Johnny Dang,” which was an ode to the Texas jeweler who specializes in designing dental “grills” for hip-hop artists. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, Wall, a white rapper from Texas, scored a No. 1 hit as a featured artist on Nelly’s “Grillz” 18 years earlier.
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📅 2024
🎤 Artist: Jack Harlow
🎵 Song: “Lovin on Me”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 2
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Jack Harlow made it three times in five years when his “Lovin on Me” topped the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and finished as the year’s second-biggest hit there, behind Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.” Harlow’s three leaders among non-Black acts place him in a three-way tie for second place alongside KC (of KC & the Sunshine Band) and Jennifer Lopez. Those three trail Robin Thicke and Paul McCartney who have four apiece. Harlow’s 47 entries on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs from 2020-26 are impressive, but that didn’t prevent a recent backlash after he was quoted as saying he “got blacker” on his latest project, Monica. That album, released in March 2026, is his lowest charting yet with sales of only 16,000 units in its first week and a No. 40 debut and peak on the Billboard 200.
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📅 2025
🎤 Artist: Justin Bieber
🎵 Song: “Yukon”
📊 Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Rank: 26
📝 DJROBBLOG Take:
Justin Bieber scored yet another big crossover smash with “Yukon” in 2025, a feat that required no assistance from previous featured acts like Daniel Caesar, Giveon, Tems, or any number of assorted rappers with whom he’d previously collaborated. “Yukon” was credited solely to Bieber, although rapper 2 Chainz provided some uncredited adlibs on the song that saw Bieber exercising some unusually high-pitched but soulful vocals. This earned him considerable airplay on R&B/Hip-Hop stations, helping make this a true R&B radio hit. Its No. 3 weekly peak on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs was enough to secure a No. 26 ranking for the year… the highest among white acts for 2025.
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I hope you enjoyed this historic travel through 70 years of R&B/Hip-Hop crossover hits. Were there any surprises for you? What about in Part 1? Feel free to comment in “Your Thoughts” below, either about these articles or any of the music chart research provided by DJROBBLOG.
DJRob
DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff! You can follow him on Bluesky at @djrobblog.bsky.social, X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog, on Facebook or on Meta’s Threads.
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