6LACK

Ricardo Valdez Valentine Jr., known professionally as 6lack, is an American R&B singer and songwriter. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, he gained recognition following the release of his 2016 single "Prblms", which marked his first entry on the Billboard Hot 100.

Ricardo Valdez Valentine Jr. emerged from Atlanta's mid-2010s underground as a rare bridge between trap's brutalism and R&B's emotional vulnerability, his breakthrough "Prblms" signaling a shift toward introspective melodicism that would define the era. Working under LVRN and Interscope, 6LACK crafted *FREE 6LACK* and *East Atlanta Love Letter* as confessional documents that positioned him alongside Future's generation while charting his own course toward soul-centered storytelling. His collaborations with SZA—artists united by their refusal to choose between rap's grit and R&B's tenderness—produced some of the decade's most affecting records, while his touring partnership cemented both as architects of a new emotional literacy in hip-hop.