House Call
R&B Singer STEVEN THAD tributes Usher, Craig David, Bobby Brown and Ray Charles with iconic album cover duplicates for Black Music Month
[WASHINGTON, DC] June 25, 2025 — New R&B sensation, Steven Thad, has just released a new collection of album copies of some of music’s most influential black male voices. In a reel posted to his Instagram today, the singer not only pays homage to each artist visually by duplicating their album covers, in his post he also includes unique self-produced a cappella renditions of a song from each artist’s album. In his tribute to Usher‘s “8701” album he covers the hit song, “You Don’t Have to Call”. In his tribute to Craig David‘s “Born to Do It”, he covers “7 Days” and in his tribute to Bobby Brown’s “Don’t Be Cruel” he creates a one-of-a-kind a cappella rendition of “Roni”. He then finalizes his Black Music Month salute to the late Ray Charles highlighting his “Love Country Style” album with an a cappella rendition of “Your Love is So Doggone Good”.
When asked about his inspiration for creating the tributes, he says, “Black artists have consistently played a crucial role in the evolution of music, how it permeates, and how it resonates with various people of all different backgrounds around the world. This month, I wanted to do my part to dissolve this idea that our contributions to the world exist inside of a vacuum. We have historically been at the pulse of what keeps music alive and growing, so I wanted to do my part to celebrate a few black artists that have undoubtedly contributed not just to R&B’s evolution, but to music’s evolution as a whole. Their names deserve to be documented in the history books and echoed throughout time, and I hope my tribute was able to aid in highlighting their legacies.
Steven Thad’s latest single, “Smile”, as well as the rest of his discography of music is now available on all major streaming platforms.
###
About Steven Thad
Steven Thad’s (born Stephen Leslie Jr.) solo musical journey began when he left for college in 2014. There he started to develop his own musical identity for the first time. In 2018 he began to shadow Grammy-nominated producer Dana Soréy
which helped him gain the confidence to start making his own beats, perfect his sound and release his own albums and EPs of cover tunes. In October 2022 he released his first album with his own original music entitled, “Love R&B” which showcased his love for the genre with tracks like “RNB”, “Do You Remember” and “Goodbye, Farewell”. With the help of Soréy, he released “Love, R&B: Deluxe” that elevated each song to an even higher dimension of musicality.
As Steven Thad continues to evolve and create, all signs are showing that this is just the beginning of an illustrious career for the rising star!
