King of R&B (album)

In 2018 Jacquees started to work on the album going for a direction that detached itself from the hip hop-influenced sound of his debut album, going for a pure R&B direction for an album that was supposed to be called Round II.[2] In December 2018, Jacquees, on his Instagram profile, claimed to be the "king of R&B" for his generation, and this led to a strong controversy about it,[3] escalating to a discussion in the urban world about who was the "king of R&B",[4] with artists such as Snoop Dogg, Puff Daddy, Wiz Khalifa, 50 Cent, Bobby Brown and others publicly speaking out on the discussion,[5][6][7] giving the "throne" to Chris Brown.[8][9] American rapper Quavo, while talking to the singer, told him that the huge discussion sparked after his claim should've brought him to change the title of the album to King of R&B, and he decided to follow the rapper's advice.[10][4]

The singer explained to Rolling Stone the title, as well as his statement saying:

Well, I got off stage and I had just performed in Rochester, New York and it had been on my mind anyway ‘cause I was just thinking like that. People ain’t really doing what I’m doing right now. I listen to everybody’s music. I’m a fan of it all, but for real R&B, ain’t nobody doing what I’m doing. So I get offstage. I get in the car. I turn on the radio and they like "Yeah, Jacquees just got offstage. He just left Dallas. He on his way to Tampa. Jacquees real work real hard. Man, if you think about it Jacquees the king of R&B for this generation." They was like "I mean think about it. Think about the kids. Think about you 25-years-old, you 16-years-old, that’s who you listening to. He the most consistent right now and the music he’s dropping right now is R&B. Jacquees is the king of R&B." I walked in the airport. I sat down and I’m just like, "You know what man? I’m the king of R&B." That’s what’s going on. That’s how I feel. I been feeling like that before I heard it, but that’s what it is. And it fit the album's mood, the music that I made for it, it's fully straight real R&B.[11]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Exclaim!	[12]
Pitchfork	7.0/10[1]
Spectrum Culture	[13]

The album received mainly positive reviews from critics. Charles Holmes of Rolling Stone praised the album for its sound, calling it one of the best albums of 2019.[11] Exclaim!'s Mathias Pageau asserted that "Jacquees certainly has a beautiful voice", but "Listening to King of R&B, there is a sense that Jacquees tries hard to emulate his heroes, instead of letting himself be inspired by them".[12] Andy Kellman of Pitchfork wrote positively of the album, stating that on the record Jacquees "even straddling the hip-hop world, he never loses the smoothness R&B requires. At a time when so many pride themselves on being genre-benders, he remains a formalist".[1]