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[IMG: Durand Bernarr]

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[IMG: Durand Bernarr]

Orin Fleurimont*

“Not for nothing, I do say [if] you take your eyes off me for two seconds, you miss a lot,” quipped jaunty crooner Durand Bernarr. He didn’t become this multifaceted artist and walking meme by happenstance or whimsy.
The newly-minted Grammy winner (born Bernarr Durand Ferebee Jr.) —  whom many liken to be a hybrid of Jenifer Lewis and the late Little Richard— has over 20 years of skin in the game, worked with your favorite singer’s favorite singer (Earth, Wind & Fire, Erykah Badu, to name a few), and ended up here by honoring himself in every form, under-promising, over-delivering, and never boxing himself in.

He gained notoriety in 2007 for showcasing his personality and vocal range after posting covers on YouTube. He made his debut in 2009 with his mixtape, Alcoholharmony: The Mixt@pe. His second EP, 8ight: The Stepson of Erykah Badu, caught the singer’s attention, and Bernarr became one of her background vocalists in 2011.

[IMG: Lionel Richie, Eric Bellinger, Michael Jackson]

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He gained momentum with his hit singles, “STUCK.” featuring Ari Lennox from 2020’s DUR&, “Mango Butter” from 2022’s Wanderlust, 2022 Soul Cypher at the Soul Train Awards, 2023 Tiny Desk, viral appearances on The Terrell Show, and most recently, his instantly meme-able reaction to winning a Grammy for Best Progressive R&B Album this past February.
Among those who helped make him the revered star he is today are his parents, Bernarr Sr. and Sharolyn Ferebee. Midway through his acceptance speech, they joined their only child onstage and were equally beaming with pride. It’s a moment that the singer wasn’t sure would ever come.
“Because my parents are boomers, I was always curious about what part of my career and my legacy they would be able to be a part of physically,” Bernarr said. “I don’t have kids. So, it’s like, what milestone would they be able to experience? For them to not only witness [this], but also be there was a very pivotal moment. I felt like that moment was just a global timeline cleanse.”

After earning the award, he immediately returned to the studio to begin work on what he intended as the deluxe version of BLOOM. It wound up becoming so much more.

[IMG: Durand Bernarr]

Juan Veloz*

“I was getting a little ahead of myself,” Bernarr admitted. “I was trying to consolidate, but there was just a lot that was coming out of the sessions. I already wanted to do the heated fellowship side of the project because I still wasn’t talking spicy on BLOOM […] There was no way we were going to be able to just choose five songs.”
What was supposed to be just five new songs wound up as 28 fresh ideas to play with from the combined talents of Raphael Saadiq, James Fauntleroy, Bryan-Michael Cox, Johntá Austin, Troy Taylor, Leven Kali, Bongo ByTheWay, Ryan James Carr, Kandi Burress, and a slew of other musical heavyweights.
Throughout his career, Bernarr has remained independent, but don’t assume he’s against asking for help. His goal — now that “yesterday’s price is not today’s price” — is to gain support and build upon what he’s already done. It just so happens that the “support” and connections that were built over time aligned perfectly with this newest ascension. “A lot of the writers and the producers, these are folks that we’ve been in the orbit of,” he noted.
Bernarr first connected with Saadiq back in 2020, and the R&B legend rearranged his schedule to have their collaboration delivered to him a day before recording. He met Fauntleroy a year or two after, and it was then that he became “one of [his] filters when it comes to releasing new music.” Bernarr explained, “I’ll play some songs for him, and if he slams his fists like, ‘Damn, why didn’t I do that?’ It’s like, okay, we’ve gotten somewhere.”
He loves himself some Taylor, met B. Cox through mutual publicist and friend, Shean England, and connected with Donnie Scantz through They Have The Range founder Branford Jones for the enthralling second single, “AM I OKAY?!”

Slowly, but surely, the dots started to connect, and the big picture took the form of a signature R&B lean and a simply powerful title: BERNARR.. Despite the release of his grippingly fluid album, he plans to finish and release two tracks separately. “It is definitely giving hard drive exclusive,” he teased.
BLOOM was a love letter to his platonic relationships, with a spotlight on protecting one’s mental health. In his words, it’s an “open love letter to the people that have just had a hand in me getting to where I am right now and sustaining that.” One of those people? England, a.k.a. the one running behind him at the Grammys. He was the person who told Bernarr it was “time” for the “love album.”
“Who knew that a project about platonic love and the love that we have with our friends-turned-family would make that kind of impact? Would make that much noise that people would love it?” the crooner reflected. “Who knew that those of us who are in therapy and working on ourselves so that we can be the best — not only for ourselves, but for the people around us — needed a theme song because there are so many, ‘You wrote that song for me, I am overqualified.’ […] just to be around people who help settle your nervous system. That needs to be acknowledged and highlighted.”
With BERNARR., he didn’t feel any pressure to replicate his last album’s success.
“That was that moment, and I’m not trying to reheat my own nachos,” he said declaratively. “If anything, I just went into figuring out what other ways we can tell stories, what other ways can we sonically go places? Where can we go? Who have we not worked with? What avenues have we not driven down? What stations have we not played? Those kinda things. I think that made it very, very seamless for me, at least. And of course, just having some of the other folks who came in to help write because we have a synergy, a chemistry. They understand my approach, which helped with the creativity.”

Taylor praised him for teaching a 30-year music veteran new tricks. Bernarr recalled, “I’m taking Altoids, and I’m reading the nutritional facts and all that stuff and trying to come up with melodies. He’s like, ‘I’ve never in my 30 years seen anybody do that.’” Despite the effortless flow of creativity, there were challenges, such as pushing beyond his self-imposed limitations. He jokingly told one producer to give him a record that he hates.

[IMG: Durand Bernarr]

Orin Fleurimont*

“It seems like artists [with] the biggest records, especially back in the day, didn’t like [them],” he explained. “It ain’t about what I like, it’s about what’s going to take me to the next level.” The failed attempt (which he ended up loving) was “My Life,” produced by Bryan-Michael Cox, Johntá Austin, and Troy Taylor.
Admittedly, it was the “most challenging” song to sing based on how it was constructed, but that was the point. “Once people hear this, they’re going to take this song away from me,” he quipped. “There’s going to be very little room in the song where I’m going to be able to sing it because it’s giving…you know when Mary [J. Blige] sings ‘I’m Goin’ Down’ and she’s gotta turn the mic to the audience? I see it in my mind.”
For Bernarr, this album isn’t just the opposite side of BLOOM. It represents something timeless. “10,000 Lifetimes,” a ballad dedicated to his father, is something he hopes will resonate with the next generation. “Our approach was we need to have a song on the album that the kids will go to sing at their talent show,” he shared.
The album cover placed him in that same pantheon, having been inspired by the likes of Teddy Pendergrass, Luther Vandross, Lionel Richie, and Michael Jackson. Initially, it was going to be titled BLOOMING with a brighter feel. However, Bernarr wanted the album cover and title to encompass what the LP was saying. “It was such a time capsule because it was all over the place, in a cohesive way,” he noted, confessing he ended up giving this the title he intended to give his rock album.

Need not fret, dear reader, that body of work is still coming. Some of the incomplete music that was recorded during these sessions will find a home on the rock album. That endeavor will finally remove him from this construct that he’s just an R&B artist.
Bernarr declared, “First and foremost, I love all kinds of music. I’m fluent in R&B. I love R&B, but I’m not an R&B artist. I try to incorporate all kinds of things into the music to showcase the stuff I was raised on and what I love. I think for people to really grasp that I’m not an R&B singer, I have to completely shift, just so that they can hear, ‘Oh no, this is not R&B.’”
He doesn’t want to carry R&B on its shoulders, but he’d rather “give everyone a good template of how you can approach music, how you can use your voice, how you can be creative, how you can incorporate your personality in it. And then I want to move on to something else because there are other ways I can use my voice over the composition. I’m just so curious about what that sounds like.” Bernarr credited Alanis Morissette, Lenny Kravitz, Jewel, Pink, Joan Osborne, Tears for Fears, and Korn for his influences into other lanes of music.
He feels he got boxed into R&B because he’s Black. “I’ve just been saying I’m an artist y’all and I know it’s because I’m Black and I got heaviness and weight to my voice, but there are so many other dimensions that it can go. I am going to show that to people, but I wanted to be a team player, making sure that we do everything in a way that is going to be beneficial for all the work that’s been put in. Now that I’ve thoroughly gotten everyone’s attention, it’s like, ‘I’m going to do this.’ We gon’ lean in the name of R&B and may the best lean win. Amen, and then we’re going to shuffle y’all because there’s other stuff that needs to be talked about and discussed, and I’m not going to be able to talk about it in a sweet way. It got some grit and some dirt on it.”

His other foray? Comedy.

[IMG: Durand Bernarr]

Juan Veloz*

Bernarr soft-launched this side of himself with an intimate show at The Sun Rose in West Hollywood in April before making his formal comedic debut at the 2026 Netflix Is A Joke Fest. Don’t think he strutted onto either of those stages without a bundle of nerves— which was new territory for the Virgo.
“A few weeks leading up to my very first performance at The Sun Rose, I felt extremely uncertain. I was excited, but also uncertain. I had not felt those two emotions in a while. Usually, I’m very confident about the things that I’m doing and how I’m presenting them. And this was new,” he confessed.
With the help of friends like Scott Evans, James Davis, and Nore Davis, they told him, “The reason that you feel uncertain is because you care and you care about your craft, you care about people.” For Bernarr, he wanted to ensure that folks were entertained and didn’t feel like he was wasting their time. After getting feedback from more seasoned comedians, he pieced his show together. “It was just about getting the stories together, how I wanted to tell it. I’m very physical with my comedy as well. There were moments even when I was doing some of my bit and I said, ‘Okay, that’s very Jenifer Lewis. That is very Martin. That’s very Jim Carrey. Even Bugs Bunny.”
Bernarr hopes this pivot opens new doors for him in television and film. Explaining, “One of the main reasons why I wanted to do it is so that people just need to see me. If they could just see me, then they can plug me in somewhere. They’d [say], ‘Oh, we need to plug him into host this,’ or ‘He’d be great on this show,’ or maybe, ‘Girl, get him in this movie, that was the audition. Let’s get him in here.’ Like if they can just see me, that’s all I need.”
This notion adds to the running theme that he’s nowhere near an overnight success and to always expect the unexpected.
“I always thought that I had a viral moment. I haven’t had a viral moment like this. Me running down that aisle, the speech, cutting up on the red carpet? This is legit virality. You got folks that don’t even know who I am using my meme. So, I just want everyone to know when you think, ‘Oh, I’ve been putting in three, five years. Holler at me when your hustle can vote, and then I’m going to tell you to wait until it can drink. You got to put in that time and effort. Work is what you have to do. Effort is what you put in,” Bernarr shared.

He goes beyond being an ancestor’s wildest dream. Instead, he feels he’s their “continuation.” Explaining, “[It’s the] spirit of a lot of these artists that were not able to genuinely get their just due and their flowers, like Little Richard. When they say, ‘I’m doing Durand Bernarr eyes.’ I’m like, ‘Little do y’all know, them Little Richard eyes.’ It’s just like he is living through us and getting the proper love.”
Bernarr’s Bloom is confirmed to be the “final level boss of this trilogy series,” which includes DUR& and Wanderlust. The first album was pre-therapy. The second LP was in the midst of therapy. Bloom is “this part of ourselves where we are the best version of ourselves, not healed, but we are so along in our healing where we can be an asset more than a liability.”
BERNARR. marks the beginning of what’s next for the man and the meme in full bloom— and he’s grateful to just soak it all in.

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[IMG: Kedar Massenburg attends Brooklyn Chophouse Grand Opening on April 25, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Johnny Nunez/WireImage)]

Kedar Massenburg at the Brooklyn Chophouse Grand Opening in 2022.
Johnny Nunez/WireImage

Since the ‘90s, Kedar Massenburg has occupied a unique space in Black music culture — part visionary, part architect, part cultural preservationist. To some, he is the executive who helped introduce the world to D’Angelo, Erykah Badu, and a generation of artists who recentered soul music around Black consciousness, live instrumentation, and ancestral pride. To others, he is the man who coined the term “neo-soul,” a phrase that would go on to define one of the most influential musical movements in modern R&B history.
According to Massenburg, what the world often misunderstands is that neo-soul was never created as a gimmick for commerce. “This ain’t no marketing bullshit,” Massenburg says emphatically. “This was a movement.”

The debate reignited recently after R&B singer and producer Raphael Saadiq, formerly of the legendary group Tony! Toni! Toné!, criticized the term neo-soul in an interview, suggesting it was a label created by executives to segment Black music and limit how major labels marketed certain artists. Massenburg, however, rejects that interpretation entirely, arguing that the phrase was born from culture, not corporate strategy.

[IMG: Black Thought]

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“First of all, let’s be real clear,” he explains. “I wasn’t an executive when I created the term in 1995. I was a manager. It wasn’t created by an executive. It was created by a visionary from a cultural background.”
For Massenburg, neo-soul was less about sound and more about identity. The music carried a spiritual and cultural message that separated it from mainstream R&B of the era. The imagery mattered just as much as the records themselves. He points to the head wraps and Afrocentric styling of Erykah Badu, the cornrows and vintage soul aesthetic of D’Angelo, and the natural beauty and introspective lyrics of India.Arie as examples of a deliberate soul presentation.
“It was about the imagery and the message in the music,” he says. “It was about putting pride back into us.”

Massenburg insists the movement was rooted in Black consciousness, spirituality, and Black history. He cites Badu’s lyrics about “360 degrees of knowledge” and mathematics in the teachings of the Five Percent Nation. “You never saw my artists looking directly into the camera,” he says. “Everything meant something.” He recalls shaping visual identities that intentionally countered the hypersexualized imagery dominating music videos during the late 1990s.

[IMG: Kedar Massenburg attends 2024 Imperial Crown Of Excellence Medal Of Honor Celebration at Bank of America Plaza on June 2, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Prince Williams/WireImage)]

Kedar Massenburg attends 2024 Imperial Crown Of Excellence Medal Of Honor Celebration at Bank of America Plaza on June 2 in Atlanta, Georgia.
Prince Williams/WireImage

Long before being named head of Motown Records in 1997 (a position he held until 2004), Massenburg had already developed a reputation as a tastemaker with an uncanny ear for artistry. He managed pioneering hip-hop acts like the foundational ‘80s group Stetsasonic, and worked with influential collectives including L.A.-based crew Freestyle Fellowship. He was deeply immersed in New York’s heavy Black Power culture, raised in a family connected to African-centered traditions and Islamic teachings.
“My family brought the word ‘nubian’ to the United States,” he says proudly. “Everything I did was intentional.”
That intentionality shaped the discovery and development of D’Angelo, who would become one of neo-soul’s defining figures. Massenburg recalls building the singer’s image around the spirit of classic soul icons like Marvin Gaye, while still creating something distinctly modern, rooted in a hip-hop-influenced space. From the sepia-toned visuals inspired by Gaye’s “What’s Going On” to the orchestra featured in the video for “Cruisin’,” Massenburg says every creative decision carried purpose. “I thought I had my Marvin Gaye,” he says. “I had my Diana Ross with Erykah.”
According to Massenburg, his involvement extended far beyond management. He sequenced albums, shaped visuals, created marketing strategies, and often guided the entire artistic direction of projects. He even says some of the interludes and background vocals on Long Time No See by Chico DeBarge were his own voice. “That Chico album is one of my favorites,” he muses. “I miss true artistry.”

Still, Massenburg’s relationship with the music industry has often been complicated. And even with the friction between him and Saadiq, Massenburg still praises his talent, calling him “a genius in his own right.” What bothers him most, however, is the suggestion that neo-soul lacked authenticity or cultural purpose. “Marketing schemes don’t last,” he says. “Movements do.”
Today, Massenburg is channeling that same entrepreneurial energy into an entirely different arena: spirits and luxury drinks. Through his company, Massenburg Celebrity Beverages, he is developing a growing portfolio that includes a wine joint venture with R&B legend Patti LaBelle’s Good Life brand, inspired by her bestselling sweet potato pie, proprietary liquor brands, and a series of dessert-inspired cream liqueurs designed specifically with people of color in mind.
Among the upcoming releases are three liquor flavors: sweet potato pie cream, banana cream pie flavor, and an apple-peach pie blend —  all concepts Massenburg believes can become household staples.
“It’s going to be on every table,” he says.
He also owns Divine 9 Wine & Spirits and a luxury spirits brand called House of Soulé, which includes tequila and vodka lines. While he remains proud of his musical legacy, Massenburg admits the modern music business no longer fulfills him creatively. “I miss artist development,” he says. “I miss people standing for something.”
Even so, his fingerprints remain all over contemporary R&B. Artists like H.E.R., Leon Thomas, and Brent Faiyaz continue drawing from a lineage that Massenburg helped shape decades ago.
And whether critics embrace the term “neo-soul” or not, Massenburg remains firm in his stance on what it truly represents. “Neo means new,” he explains. “New soul music, reminiscent of our ancestors.”

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