Summer Marjani Walker is an American R&B singer who was born on April 11, 1996. She joined Love Renaissance and Interscope Records in 2017. The tune “Girls Need Love” from her mixtape Last Day of Summer earned her first top 40 entry on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart with a remix with Drake the following year. Walker’s debut studio album Over It, which featured the US top 20 single “Playing Games,” was released in October 2019. When Over It was released, music critics praised it universally. It also debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 list, shattering the previous record for the largest streaming debut week for a female R&B artist, and the Recording Industry Association of America awarded it platinum certification (RIAA).
Her second studio album, Still Over It, which was released on November 5, 2021, debuted at the top of the Billboard 200.
The album surpassed her previous record for the largest streaming debut week for a female R&B artist and broke the record for the most album streams by a female artist on Apple Music. They also tied with Taylor Swift as the only two female artists to have 18 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 at the same time. She has won a Billboard Music Award, won two Soul Train Music Awards, and been nominated for a Grammy.
According to Walker, Erykah Badu, Jimi Hendrix, and Amy Winehouse are her musical influences. Walker also cited Lauryn Hill and D’Angelo as influences for her to experiment and explore new sounds within the R&B and Neo soul genres. Walker cited Mary J. Blige as an inspiration for the vulnerability and authenticity she displays in her own music, saying “back when Mary J. Blige and Faith Evans were making R&B, they had real pain and real stories. That’s why it was so good.”
