Marissa M. Conner 
RnB is a genre that seems to take on new life with each decade as different artists approach the genre with varying styles. Rhythm and blues, which combine different genres like jazz, soul, and gospel music, were born in the 1940s in African American communities. The genre has continuously evolved with each generation, as people have different tastes in music, especially when technology has come into play.
Every generation has no shortage of talented RnB singers and songwriters who keep the genre alive despite the emergence of other musical styles. The 2010s saw Bruno Mars, Usher, Justin Timberlake, Rihanna, Justin Bieber, The Weeknd, Beyonce and John Legend dominate the scene. These artists have inspired countless people online to pursue their dreams of becoming both RnB artists and songwriters.
These artists have greatly influenced an aspiring Chicago musician named Luuk Halman, an online sensation. In the late 2000s, while still in college, he started downloading covers of popular 90s RnB songs. Luuk brought nostalgia to his audience, which slowly grew as he went along. that he was uploading more videos to YouTube. Luuk’s early musical influences include Boyz II Men, Keith Sweat, Usher, Joe, and Chris Brown.
After uploading over 30 videos to YouTube, Luuk racked up over 300,000 views, paving the way for a promising career as a musician. He has also created accounts on Instagram, SoundCloud and Spotify to strengthen his online presence and increase his audience. In 2015, Luuk’s pages on these sites were all verified, which marked the start of a potential career in the mainstream market.
When people started going to TikTok for shorter videos, Luuk joined in and posted teasers for his covers. His most notable video, his version of “All of Me” by John Legend, has been viewed over two million times on the platform. Luuk was thrilled with this milestone, so he continued to share more covers on TikTok. In 2019, Luuk has over 500,000 subscribers and his videos have over three million likes.
Luuk enjoyed his success online, but knew he needed to sing original songs to build a career in the industry. Because of this, he started writing his own songs and then shared them on YouTube, hoping they would be as popular as his old videos. Thankfully, his fans have given his new material the same support that he covers during his early years as an online sensation.
“Better Every Day” is the title of Luuk’s most popular release to date, with over 800,000 views on YouTube. The song deals with the pain of mental health issues, a central theme in most of his compositions. Luuk saw himself as a troubled teenager who had a pessimistic view of the world during his middle and high school years. Music became his escape from a world he thought was full of pain and sorrow.
Luuk uses his talent to engage with people facing mental health issues, a rare concept covered by many RnB singers. He wants to lead a new generation of artists in the genre to be bigger than their riffs and their runs. Luuk hopes to become mainstream soon so that his message resonates with a wider audience on a larger scale.
