OPEN SESSIONS IS MAKING MUSIC DISCOVERY SOCIAL AGAIN
With live listening, honest industry feedback and a room full of R&B lovers, SoulEra Records and The Playlist Queen are making the search for new talent feel exciting again.
Music discovery has become increasingly solitary.
A recommendation appears on your feed. A song finds its way into an automatically generated playlist. An unfamiliar artist becomes familiar only after enough people have already decided they are worth hearing.
Open Sessions offers something different.
Presented by SoulEra Records and The Playlist Queen, the second annual R&B mixer and listening session brought artists, industry professionals and music lovers together to experience new music in real time. No endless scrolling required. Just a room full of people ready to listen.
That simplicity is part of what made the event feel so refreshing.
Open Sessions turns discovering emerging artists into something social, participatory and, perhaps most importantly, fun. The audience was not waiting for an algorithm to tell them who was next. They were meeting the artists, hearing their records and becoming part of the discovery process themselves.
HEARING THE GROWTH
The progress from the first Open Sessions to the second was easy to see.
The production had grown, the room felt fuller and the event appeared increasingly confident in its format. But the most impressive growth could be heard from the returning artists.
Several came back with stronger records, more developed sounds and a clearer sense of who they were becoming. It gave the audience an opportunity rarely offered by traditional music discovery platforms: the chance to follow an artist’s development before the polished breakthrough moment.
We often meet artists once the story has already been written for us. By the time they appear on a major playlist, festival lineup or industry radar, much of the experimentation and evolution has happened out of view.
Open Sessions lets the audience witness that process.
It makes discovery less about being the first person to know an artist’s name and more about being present long enough to hear the growth.
PRESS PLAY, THEN TALK ABOUT IT
The format also gave the music room to become a conversation.
Artists presented their singles to a panel of industry professionals who responded with honest, thoughtful and actionable feedback. The critiques were direct without becoming discouraging and specific enough for the artists to use beyond the evening.
Aysha Jawara brought the perspective of a curator and community builder. As the creator and host of Lover’s Rotation, one of Toronto’s go to platforms for R&B and beyond, she has helped introduce audiences to emerging talent through radio, live events and artist interviews.
Lloyd Boateng offered insight from the business and artist development side of the industry. The Toronto based music executive and A&R strategist coordinates the Gold & Platinum Certification Program at Music Canada and is a two time JUNO Award winning music professional.
Leila Dey brought the perspective of a working artist who understands what it means to have the music evaluated from the other side of the table. The Jamaican born, Toronto raised R&B singer and songwriter is a 2026 RBCxMusic First Up selection whose work has earned co signs from Timbaland, Jessie Reyez and Ari Lennox.
Together, the panelists did more than decide whether they liked a song. They considered what each artist was trying to accomplish and offered direction that could help move the work forward.
That exchange gave the audience another way into the music. They were not simply hearing the finished single. They were being invited into a wider conversation about songwriting, performance, identity, presentation and what it takes to build a sustainable career.
ARTISTS WORTH ADDING TO THE PLAYLIST
Among the evening’s standout artists were Nino Flamenco, Denise Deion, Chenzira, Zina and Nadri Nami.
Each brought something distinct to the session, reflecting the range within Toronto’s emerging R&B scene. There was no single sound being presented as the future of the genre. The pleasure came from hearing different voices, perspectives and creative instincts share the same platform.
That variety made the event feel less like an industry audition and more like what its name promises: a session.
People listened. They reacted. They exchanged opinions. They found artists they wanted to hear again.
It restored some of the curiosity that can get lost when music is delivered through platforms designed to predict what we already like.
DISCOVERY IS BETTER WITH COMPANY
The community surrounding the event was as important as the format itself.
Other artists showed up in support. R&B lovers came prepared to engage with unfamiliar music. The audience listened closely and responded generously, creating an environment in which emerging talent could be taken seriously without the evening becoming overly formal or inaccessible.
That balance is difficult to achieve.
SoulEra Records and The Playlist Queen created an event with genuine industry value that still felt like somewhere people wanted to be. Artists received useful feedback and exposure. Audiences found new music. Everyone left with more names to follow than they arrived with.
Open Sessions understands that music discovery does not have to feel like research. It can be a night out. It can be communal. It can allow listeners to develop a relationship with artists before the rest of the world catches up.
By its second year, the event has already given audiences something worth returning for: new voices to discover and familiar ones whose growth they can continue to follow.
We are looking forward to seeing which artists enter the session next year and how much further the returning talent will have gone.
Finding your next favourite artist is always exciting.
Open Sessions reminds us that it is even better when you get to do it together.
Follow SoulEra Records and The Playlist Queen for more new music discoveries and upcoming events.
