Avant

There's one thing that's pretty impossible to get around: Avant sounds a lot like R. Kelly. But unlike the pied piper of R&B, Avant ensures that his come-ons never take on Kelly's absurdist bent, and he won't pander to the indie kids like fellow hitmaker The-Dream. What he is interested in, however, is making solid urban-contemporary R&B very much in the mold of Kirk Franklin and Jill Scott.