Summer Walker went from running a small cleaning business in Atlanta to the top of the Billboard 200, by way of YouTube guitar tutorials and Vine clips. Born and raised in the city, she taught herself to play, posted covers online and was spotted on Vine by the studio manager at Love Renaissance, the local label that signed her in 2017 in partnership with Interscope. Her R&B deals in love, doubt and womanhood.
The mixtape Last Day of Summer arrived in October 2018, led by "Girls Need Love", whose Drake remix became her first Billboard Hot 100 entry. Over It (2019) peaked at number two on the Billboard 200, went triple platinum and spent 14 nonconsecutive weeks atop the R&B Albums chart. The 2020 EP Life on Earth also topped that chart, and that year she won a Billboard Music Award for Best Female R&B Artist, ahead of Beyoncé and Lizzo. Still Over It (2021) debuted at number one, and its single "No Love", with SZA and Cardi B, reached the top 15. "Good Good", with Usher and 21 Savage, entered the top 40 in 2023. She has four Grammy nominations and, in 2022, received Billboard's Chart Breaker Award.