Eric Benét has a new top 10 hit on this week’s Billboard Adult R&B Airplay chart, dated Sept. 14.
The R&B veteran’s duet with Tamar Braxton, “Something We Can Make Love To,” rises from No. 11 to No. 9 in its tenth week. The seductive track, produced by Laney Stewart, is now Benét’s 13th song to occupy the top 10 portion of the airplay chart.
Benét’s last top 10 ranking before his collaboration with Braxton is “Insane,” which reached No. 10 in March 2017. The Prince-inspired song was taken from his self-titled album, released in 2016.
“Something We Can Make Love To” is Braxton’s ninth top 10 entry on the airplay chart, with six of them that placed in the top five region, including her previous smash “Changed” at No. 2 in August 2023.
“We went down to Atlanta and hung out with Tricky Stewart and Laney Stewart. Laney presented this song to us and we thought it was perfect,” Benét told Rated R&B about the creation of “Something We Can Make Love To.”
He continued, “I can’t take credit for any of the writing, but it was one of those songs when I first heard it, I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, this feels like it could fit in the whole family of Eric Benét’s music. But also, it feels like something that right now, in a very timely way. It feels classic and romantic and could definitely work as a first single.”
Elsewhere on the Billboard, “Something We Can Make Love To” is at No. 34 in its sixth week on the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart. It’s Benét’s best-performing song since “Sunshine,” which reached No. 27 in November 2016.
Billboard aside, Benét is gaining traction for his current single at R&B radio. Per Mediabase, “Something We Can Make Love To” is No. 9 this week. The bedroom jam experienced a 127-spin increase, reaching an audience impression of 3.3 million.
“Something We Can Make Love To” served as the first taste of new music from Benét this year, as well as the lead from his EP, Duets, released Aug. 23 via his label, JBR Creative Group.
Duets also feature collaborations with Chanté Moore, Corinne Bailey Rae, LaTocha and Ledisi.
The five-track project will be expanded into a full-length album, which Benét hopes will include an already-submitted duet with Chaka Khan.
“I wrote this song called ‘Southern Pride,’ which is about the Great Migration from the 1920s of African-Americans leaving the South looking for a more tolerable brand of racism in the Midwestern and the Northern States,” Benét shared exclusively with Rated R&B.
“So, this is a message to Chaka: ‘You heard the song, Miss Chaka Khan. You said you love it and just need to figure out when you are going to come to the studio to record this vocal. Now come on, Chaka!’ All that to say, Chaka ain’t come by and do her vocal yet,” Benét added with a laugh.
Braxton, who is part of a new season of The Braxtons, is working on a new album alongside Tricky Stewart.
In addition to teaming up with Benét on new music, she also appears on Tyrese‘s freshly-released album, Beautiful Pain, on a new version of “Neither One Of Us” by Gladys Knight & The Pips.
In March, Braxton released a new song titled “Notice Me.” Before that, she released the holiday song “You Bring The Love,” which was produced and co-written by Louis York, composed of Chuck Harmony and Claude Kelly.
Watch Eric Benét and Tamar Braxton’s live performance of “Something We Can Make Love To” below.
