Summer Walker

Summer Marjani Walker (born April 11, 1996) is an American R&B singer.

From 2016 to 2018, she had a small cleaning business, and was also a stripper in Atlanta before she taught herself how to play the guitar by watching tutorials on YouTube.

Soon after, she began performing covers and posting various videos of herself to the platform.

Walker was discovered by a woman of the same name, who works as the studio manager of an Atlanta-based label called Love Renaissance.

She signed with the Atlanta-based record label Love Renaissance, an imprint of Interscope Records in late 2017.

In 2017, she signed with this label and Interscope Records.

The following year, she released her debut commercial mixtape Last Day of Summer (2018), supported by its lead single, "Girls Need Love."

The song became her first entry on the Billboard Hot 100 and spawned a remix featuring Canadian rapper Drake.

On October 19, 2018, Walker released her debut commercial mixtape, titled Last Day of Summer, supported by the lead single, "Girls Need Love".

Walker's album contained her thoughts on love, doubt, and womanhood.

Towards the end of 2018, Walker toured with 6lack on the From East Atlanta With Love Tour.

Her debut studio album, Over It (2019) was met with critical and commercial success, peaking at number two on the Billboard 200 chart—briefly breaking the record for the biggest debut streaming week for a female R&B artist—and receiving double platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Her second album, Still Over It (2021) debuted atop the Billboard 200.

The album broke the record for most streams in a single day by a female artist on Apple Music and broke her previous record for largest streaming debut-week for a female R&B artist; she also tied with Taylor Swift as the only female artist to have 18 concurrent songs from one album enter the Billboard Hot 100.

It spawned the single "Ex for a Reason" (featuring JT of the City Girls), which peaked within the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100, while its follow up single, "No Love" (with SZA and Cardi B) peaked within the top 15 and received platinum certification by the RIAA.

Her 2023 single, "Good Good" (with Usher and 21 Savage) also entered the top 40 of the chart.

Her accolades include a Billboard Music Award, a IHeartRadio Music Awards two Soul Train Music Awards, and two Grammy Award nominations.

In 2022 Billboard Women in Music recognized Walker with the Chart Breaker Award for her achievement on Billboard charts.

As of 2024, Walker has sold over 32 million certified units from the RIAA between albums and songs.

Walker was born in Atlanta, Georgia.

Following the success of her mixtape, Apple Music named Walker as its newest Up Next artist in 2019, and she became the number 8 R&B artist worldwide across the platform.

On January 25, 2019, Walker released her first EP titled Clear, consisting of four tracks of acoustic recordings.

On February 27, she released the remix to her song, "Girls Need Love", with Drake.

On August 23, 2019, Walker released a track, called "Playing Games" as the first official single for her debut studio album, titled Over It.

The song, which contains an interpolation of Destiny's Child's number-one hit "Say My Name", was produced by London on da Track.

On September 12, Walker revealed that Over It would be released on October 4 via LVRN and Interscope Records.

Along with her album announcement, she shared the official artwork.

Over It debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 with 134,000 units in its first week.

Its debut week marked the largest streaming week for an R&B album by a female artist, in terms of on-demand audio streams.

The album topped the R&B Albums chart for 14 nonconsecutive weeks, and as of July 2020, has yet to chart below number 7.

Walker supported Over It with her accompanying The First and Last Tour, which kicked off on October 20.

Due to her social anxiety, Walker canceled the remaining 20 out of 29 dates on the tour committing to 9 of them.

On November 17, Walker won her first Soul Train Music Award for Best New Artist, she later received backlash from fans for her short speech and was accused of faking her social anxiety.

In early 2020, Walker collaborated with an American rapper 21 Savage on a song, titled "Secret".

Walker also appeared on a remix for Justin Bieber's song Yummy.

In April 2020, she was featured on Khalid's remix of "Eleven".

On June 29, Walker announced the release of an EP, titled Life on Earth to be released on July 10.

The announcement came a day after she performed "Session 32" and "Come Thru" with Usher at the 2020's BET Awards, where Walker was nominated for Best New Artist and Best Female R&B/Pop Artist.

Life on Earth debuted atop the Billboard Top R&B Albums chart, becoming Walker's second number one.

It also debuted at number 8 on the Billboard 200 becoming Walker's second top 10 project on the chart.