Happy Birthday to Silk Sonic! 3 years ago today, Bruno Mars and Anderson Paak came together to form Silk Sonic and release their album ‘An Evening with Silk Sonic’. 3 years later, the album has aged like fine wine.

The record itself wasn’t submitted for the 2022 Grammy Awards. This shocked many, given the fact that this would be widely considered for Album of the Year. Unfortunate, but the band’s debut single and most streamed record “Leave the Door Open” took home 4 Grammy’s including ‘Song of The Year’ and ‘Record of the Year’

This generational collab began its build back in 2017 when Paak was the opening act for Bruno on his 24k Magic tour. In April, Mars and Paak collaborated at Abbey Road Studios in London alongside Nile Rodgers and Guy Lawrence for Chic’s album It’s About Time. They also worked on music during their tour, which later appeared on Paak’s album Ventura.

In February of 2021, the two officially announced that they had formed a band and called it Silk Sonic, with the band officially being named by legendary bass guitarist Bootsy Collins. The band’s debut single was released on March 5th, paired with a music video and an intro song narrated by Collins. 

On July 28th, Mars announced that Silk Sonic would be hosting a “Summertime Jam” two days later. The event turned out to celebrate the release of their new single, “Skate,” which debuted on July 30 along with a music video.

On November 5th, the album’s last single and my personal favorite record on the track “Smoking Out The Window” was released paired with a music video which ended up taking home a BET award for video of the year. 

A week later, the album was released, and the music world was treated to a masterpiece. 

I’ve been on record in the past saying that Bruno Mars is one of the best artists of our generation. Very few artists have put on banger after banger like Bruno has. Via Billboard, Bruno has 34 top 100 entries, 20 that have made it into the top 10, and 8 that have made it to number 1. With a total discography of 62 songs, that means a quarter of his releases enter the top 10 in music’s biggest chart ranking. Goat shit. 

This record speaks well to his versatility. However, I can’t solely give credit to Mars for my personal enjoyment of this record. Anderson Paak is also a massive factor. In an era where most R&B artists are attempting to re-capture the sounds of a different era, Paak stands out as a man who strives for a unique and classic soul-feel sound. Many R&B artists aim to recreate the past, .Paak stands out by keeping his sound authentic and unique.

In terms of the record itself, it’s one of my favorites. “Skate”, “Leave The Door Open” and “Smoking Out the Window” are some of my favorite songs that are still in my rotation to this day. “Fly as Me” and “After Last Night” are very good tracks. And where this would be the spot where most artists would fill their albums with filler, Bruno and Paak pushed out quality song after quality song. 

R&B always seems to feel like an overcrowded genre. Several artists try, with one or two records dabbling in the genre, and tend to fail. Others try to make a career of recreating the sounds of R&B legends such as Marvin Gaye or Stevie Wonder. Paak and Mars ride that line well, with this record. Paak has a very rich history in the genre, but this is Mars’ first dabble into R&B, and simply put, he crushed it. 

I’m not entirely sure if we’ll get more of this duo down the road, but in the meantime, we need to appreciate this masterpiece and appreciate these legends of the music scene while we still have them making music.