ZAYN
Zain Javadd Malik rose to fame at seventeen as a member of One Direction, the boy band assembled on the 2010 series of the UK 'X Factor,' before leaving the group in 2015 to pursue a solo career steeped in the R&B, hip-hop, and reggae records he grew up hearing in his father's collection. His 2016 debut single 'Pillowtalk' entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number one, and the accompanying album 'Mind of Mine' recast him as a moody alt-R&B stylist trading teen-pop gloss for smoky, falsetto-driven bedroom soul. Working with Sia on 'Dusk Till Dawn' and across later albums, he has stayed within a nocturnal, sensual R&B-pop lane built on layered harmonies and a supple upper register.
Malik has repeatedly named Michael Jackson as one of his greatest inspirations, marking Jackson's birthday on social media in 2012 by calling him 'one of music's biggest inspirations,' and Jackson's blend of silky pop-soul phrasing, breathy falsetto, and dance-floor rhythm carries into Malik's uptempo material.
listen forThrow on Jackson's 'Rock with You' and then Malik's 'Like I Would' — listen for how each rides a slick, insistent groove while the vocal darts up into clipped, percussive falsetto hooks that dance around the beat rather than sitting flat on it.
Describing the sound of his debut, Malik listed Usher among the R&B artists he grew up on — 'a lot of R. Kelly, a lot of Usher, a lot of Donell Jones' — and Usher's early-2000s slow-jam craft, the hushed confessional verse opening into a pleading chorus, is a template Malik leans on for his ballads.
listen forCue Usher's 'U Got It Bad' next to Malik's 'iT's YoU' — both keep the verses intimate and nearly spoken before the singer strains upward into an aching, exposed chorus about being undone by someone.
Malik has been cited as counting The Weeknd among his R&B influences, and the two share the nocturnal alt-R&B palette that surfaced in the early 2010s — hazy, minor-key production and a high, feathery falsetto used to narrate desire and its complications.
listen forPlay The Weeknd's 'Wicked Games' before Malik's 'wRoNg' — notice the shared after-hours mood: sparse, echoing production, a falsetto that sounds half-dissolved in reverb, and a lyric that treats a bad-idea attraction as something to sink into rather than resist.