Keyshia Cole w/ The-Dream

This loaded concert brings more major contemporary R&B singers to Milwaukee than the city usually hosts in an entire season. As the top of the bill is Keyshia Cole, whose offsets her urbane, adult-contemporary friendly sound with a streetwise attitude that made her 2007 album Just Like You one of the year's biggest sellers. Though The-Dream is better known for the songs he's written for others, among them Rihanna's “Umbrella” and Beyonce's “Single Ladies,” he's quickly emerging as one of R&B's most groundbreaking recording artists, releasing a stunningly ambitious, irresistibly infectious masterpiece this year with Love Vs. Money. After years of paying dues, longtime Timbaland protégé Keri Hilson can finally claim to her name a debut album (this year's In a Perfect World…) and a genuine hit single (the chart-climbing “Knock You Down,” which makes good use of dueling Ne-Yo and Kanye West guests spots). And though R&B singer Bobby Valentino's career hasn't been as distinguished as those of his bill-mates, he'll forever be fondly remembered in the pop history books for his good-humored “wee-oh-wee-oh-wee” chorus on Lil Wayne's excellent “Mrs. Officer.”