Collette’s indie R&B is the kind that jaded R&B heads swear isn’t being made anymore. She croons sincere, straight-from-the-heart lyrics over tinkling keys and a fresh, dope beat; her windy soprano delivers vocal runs soft and light as a plane skywriting I LUV YOU overhead. This former alto sax-playing “band geek” from Columbia, South Carolina studied music in grade school, graduated from Howard University, and honed her jam-band pedigree singing and playing Washington D.C.-based go-go music with a college band before blossoming into her own as a singer-songwriter.

Collette’s latest visual, “Never Told You,” was directed by Barton Robison. In the introspective song, she questions why she never found the courage to reveal her true feelings for special bae who got away before he married the next girl. She radiates flawless gorgeous in strappy heels, beautiful box twists and subtle-sexy, body-molding dresses while doing so. Hindsight after a break-up can be sharper than a pair of bifocals, I tell ya.

“Never Told You” is off of Collette’s Kickstarter-financed second album, Juneteenth Revolution. (The album is named for the yearly commemoration of the day in 1865 when enslaved African-Americans in Texas were first made aware that the Emancipation Proclamation had freed them from bondage, a day that also happens to fall on the singer’s birthday.) “Never Told You” is the perfect song to (maybe) rekindle a romance before the opportunity scoots on by.

Finding the right words to expose a heart yearning for an old flame can feel like the scariest thing in the world to do, so let Collette’s musical love letter do it for you. And discover more of Collette’s true-school R&B/soul on Facebook and her website.—Sun Singleton