TikTok is extremely chaotic for the music industry. What it takes to go viral seems to have no rhyme or reason. Sometimes, it’s not even a new song. People online resurrect popular songs from the past or beloved album cuts and soundtrack their lives to them or use them for meme purposes. Truly, anything can become popular at any time, regardless of whether it’s a good song or not.
Thankfully, for every bad song, there’s something great that spawns from it. R&B has especially found a renewed love on TikTok. Miguel found a second wind with “Sure Thing“. Fans lovingly revisited Lloyd’s “Lay It Down” over a decade later. It’s beautiful to watch a new generation fall in love with music of the past and not just rely on the new string of songs that come out every week.
As fans online revisit classics from past decades and artists like Kehlani revive the 2000s R&B aesthetic, we’ve picked three songs from that era that deserve a second chance with new fans.
3 Classic 2000s R&B Songs That Should Go Viral on TikTok
“Love Drug” by Raheem DeVaughn
Part of what makes anything go viral nowadays is the ability to use it in a meme. Certain R&B songs have an inherent silliness and over-the-top nature that could fit a variety of formats.
“Love Drug” by Raheem DeVaughn slots in seamlessly here because his romantic demeanor mixes with the goofiness of the lyrics. He’ll combine a lot of silly metaphors and innuendo surrounding drugs and romance that are sold with real earnestness. “I’m a lovaholic for you/Plus the fact that my love is/Dope,” he croons with a straight face.
It would be hilarious to find people rediscover the song on TikTok and laugh at the ludicrous songwriting.
“Stressed Out” by Babyface
Few things epitomize the 2000s like prime Neptunes production. But at this point, people have scrounged the earth for many of the great songs from Pharrell and Chad Hugo. But arguably the greatest producer and songwriter of all time seems to go under the radar with “Stressed Out”. It’s fresh, sexy, and limber in its tempo, making anyone on TikTok reminisce for when summers sounded like the Babyface classic.
“Just Friends (Sunny)” by Musiq Soulchild
One thing is extremely apparent about some of the younger generations: they’re not that pressed about hooking up. Instead, they’re a bit more worried about not overstepping boundaries and being careful about how they treat someone they’re interested in romantically. Sometimes, it stops completely, and they’d rather stay in the friend zone so as to not make anyone uncomfortable.
Thankfully, Musiq Soulchild made that experience sound not so intimidating on “Just Friends (Sunny)”. He makes it clear that he doesn’t want to pressure the woman into doing anything she doesn’t want to do. He’s totally fine with just hanging out platonically if that’s all she wants to do.
“I’m not trying to pressure you/Just can’t stop thinkin’ ’bout you/You ain’t even really gotta be my girlfriend/I just wanna know your name and maybe some time/We can hook up, hang out, just chill,” Musiq Soulchild sweetly sings.
Photo by Ben Rose/WireImage
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