Teyana Taylor

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Photo by Jade Wilson

Teyana Taylor

There’s no question that Kanye West deliberately sabotaged the rollout and final product of Teyana Taylor’s 2018 sophomore release, K.T.S.E., but ultimately, it seems to have worked in her favor. It all started three years ago when the then-twenty-five-year-old singer and dancer starred in the music video for West’s “Fade” as the indelible Flashdance-esque thirster-ciser. As those four minutes were still marinating in our psyches two years later, Taylor and West were holed up somewhere in Wyoming, concocting arguably the most soulful twenty-three-minutes of R&B music. And as frustrated as Taylor may have been with how West chose to present her project to the world, sample-laden cuts like “Gonna Love Me,” “Issue/Hold On,” and “Hurry” presented her as an undeniable vocal force. “It expressed so much,” she told Billboard, months after K.T.S.E.’s release. “It showed a different side from the first album, a more vulnerable and mature woman side of me.” Add that to the energetic, killer dance moves she pulls off while singing, and what you have is one of the more prime performer packages, post-Janet Jackson. —Eric Tullis