When ROI drops a track, you don’t brace for hype—you just press play and let it take you. “For Ya,” his latest single released on May 1st, isn’t here to flex. It’s here to feel. And nobody in Israel does that blend of slow-burn soul and modern R&B textures like ROI does. At this point, it’s safe to say: he’s the blueprint. Not just one of the greats— ROI is hands down the most resonant voice in Israeli R&B today, setting the standard and defining the sound of contemporary Israeli R&B.
A collab with NYC rapper Kaynine the Gawd, “For Ya” unfolds like a conversation across time zones—trap drums with a blues heart, all set in a soundscape that’s part bedroom, part back alley, part midnight prayer. The beat hits soft, but heavy. Ambient synths hum like a slow inhale. Then come the 808s, thick and warm, grounding everything like footsteps in wet pavement.
ROI’s voice floats over it all—grainy in just the right places, smooth where it needs to be, like D’Angelo if he’d grown up in the Negev. His melodies don’t show off—they haunt. It’s all tone, timing, space. Subtle autotune textures give the track some shimmer, but never wash out the grit. The hook slides in with half-sung, half-spoken urgency, like someone saying too much and not enough all at once.
Kaynine cuts in halfway through, flipping the mood. His flow is tight and slightly behind the beat—laid back but locked in—and adds that extra edge of hunger. Their voices play off each other without ever crowding the frame. This is collaboration done right: no fighting for the mic, just two styles orbiting the same mood.
The production—handled by ROI himself with Gaash on mix and design and **Kfir Malka behind the boards—**feels stripped down but intentional. Nothing’s there by accident. You hear looped harmonies tucked into the sides, pads gently sidechained to the kick, and that 808 bass—low, wide, but never bloated. It breathes.
Recorded between Tel Aviv and Beer Sheva, the whole track lives in that in-between space—between genres, between heartbreak and hope, between what’s said and what’s left out. There’s a reason ROI keeps working from home studios: he knows the beauty lives in the imperfections, the warmth, the closeness.
ROI isn’t trying to make a name—he is the name. From being the soloist in the IDF band, to national stages, to collabs with artists like Idan Haviv, Hanan Ben Ari, Amir Dadon, and Itay Levi, he’s been doing this with a kind of quiet certainty that doesn’t need headlines to hold weight. He’s not chasing the spotlight—he’s the reason it turns.
“For Ya” isn’t about bending the genre. It’s about stretching into the corners of it ROI knows best—melancholy, devotion, restraint, control. The groove is tight, the mood is slow-drip, and the message is clear: this isn’t just another artist trying to break through. This is the guy everyone else is borrowing from.