Canadians Earn Soul Train Awards Nominations

“From the biggest songs of the year to the artists taking R&B global, these categories show how far the genre reaches right now, and we can’t wait to see where the votes land.”

Soul Train Awards 2026 nominees: the song category

R&B/Soul Song of the Year, voted exclusively on BET.com, drew ten nominees from songs released between June 1, 2025 and May 31, 2026: Brent Faiyaz with “Butterflies”, Bruno Mars with “I Just Might”, Chris Brown and Bryson Tiller with “It Depends”, Daniel Caesar with “Who Knows”, Justin Bieber with “Yukon”, Kehlani with “Folded”, Mariah the Scientist and Kali Uchis with “Is It a Crime”, Olivia Dean with “Man I Need”, Tems with “What You Need” and Tyla with “Chanel”. Voting ran from October 5 to October 16, so the Canadian entries are locked in and waiting on the envelope.

For Bieber, “Yukon” keeps collecting honours a full year after release. The song, the second single from his July 2025 album Swag, was sent to radio on July 22, 2025, and its black-and-white video, directed by Cole Bennett and filmed in Spain and Italy, features his wife Hailey and their son Jack Blues in the boy’s on-screen debut. Bieber performed the song at the 68th Grammy Awards in February 2026, where it was nominated for Best R&B Performance. A Soul Train nomination in a fan-voted field is a different kind of test, decided by the audience rather than an academy.

Caesar and PARTYNEXTDOOR complete the Canadian three

Daniel Caesar’s “Who Knows” arrives from the Son of Spergy era, the Oshawa singer’s October 2025 album campaign that he promoted with viral pop-up concerts across Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver before the record landed. His nomination places one of Canada’s defining R&B voices inside the genre’s defining American awards show, in a category voted on by fans rather than critics. PARTYNEXTDOOR, from Mississauga, represents Canada in the international category against Cleo Sol, FLO, kwn, Odeal, Tems and Tiana Major9, with that vote cast inside the Spotify app.

Tems is the night’s statistical leader, the only artist nominated in both fan-voted categories, with two nominations total. The red carpet show, Back on Track, adds one more fan element: the reveal of the twenty greatest R&B songs of the 2020s, chosen by public vote and streamed live on November 27. Additional performers and honourees are still to be announced as the rollout continues, and the CBS simulcast puts the comeback edition on a broadcast stage beyond BET’s own channels for the first time.

Why the Canadian showing matters

Soul Train has honoured R&B’s core audience since 1987, and Canadian artists have historically been guests in that house rather than fixtures. This year three of them hold nominations across both of the show’s new fan-decided categories, covering Stratford pop, Oshawa soul and Mississauga’s OVO sound in a single ballot. None of it was handed out by a committee looking for geographic balance: the song category was open to anything released in the eligibility window, and the fans did the choosing during the October vote.

On November 27 the winners are read out in Chicago, and Canada will be listening for three names. Bieber against a field that includes Bruno Mars and Chris Brown, Caesar carrying a song from the most personal album of his career, and PARTYNEXTDOOR flying the flag in the international race. Whatever the envelopes say, the ballot itself already made the point: Canadian R&B is no longer visiting this stage. It is on the programme.