When Atlanta singer Jacquees crowned himself the King of R&B last year, his self-coronation was met almost entirely with jeers and dismissals. Despite his vague caveat (“for this generation”) and its clear intentions (for Jacquees to psyche himself up), haters, talking heads, and all the once and neverKings gathered en masse to dogpile the poor guy. It was only The-Dream, a singer-songwriter who can stake his own claim to the throne, that came at the comments with any sense: “That’s how you gotta talk, man,” he told Beats 1. “I did the same thing before I wrote ‘Single Ladies.’ ... Everybody took that as me being asinine at the time. They didn’t know like ... No, he’s trying to psych himself out to do some great shit.”

Jacquees makes a similar clarification on “King,” the opener to his sophomore album, which he dedicates to all the kings that came before: “Every day, a star is born/And if we talkin’ kings, there’s more than one/You should clap for ‘em,” he sings, reworking the hook from JAY-Z’s “A Star is Born” to reframe himself as just the latest in a long line of R&B royals. King of R&B, an hour-long, 18-track practice of the genre’s techniques, is Jacquees’ job application. He doesn’t write any songs as great as “Single Ladies,” but his ambitions are crystal-clear.

Of the R&B singers under 30 that Jacquees could feasibly call his competition, he is the most well-rounded. He might not have the massive crossover appeal of Bryson Tiller, or the experimental range of Daniel Caesar; his music isn’t as rap-infused as the alternative R&B of 6lack, and he’s nowhere near the songwriter the Internet’s Syd is, but he is as fundamentally sound as any of his peers: he understands R&B songs at their basic components and he is easily the most gifted singer of the bunch. In his clash with one such contemporary, Tory Lanez, on the album cut “Risk It All,” Jacquees steamrolls the Canadian mimic with bigger melodies and bolder come-ons. Throughout, he tries on Trigga-era temptations, Usher-sized confessions, and nearly everything in between.