Ironic, then, that such a shift seems to have been ushered in by a death — not of R&B proper, mind you, but of one of its greatest modern pacesetters: The Weeknd. Since 2011, the persona inhabited by ...

A group of young singer-songwriters have transformed the genre by looking backward, without getting stuck in the past. Here and below are seven of the many contemporary artists who are redefining and ...