Rhythm & Blues History

Rhythm & Blues, often abreviated to R&B, was a name given to a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940's. It was created through a mix of many genres such as jazz, rock and roll, electric blues, soul and gospel music.

The meaning behind the term has different meanings for example. The "rhythm" part comes from the music's typical dependance upon four-beat measures or bars and employ a backbeat (beats two and four accented in each measure). And the "blues" portion came from the lyrics and melodies of the songs, which were often sad, or 'blue' during the music's emergence in the World War II era. Over time the name was shortened to R&B as a matter of convenience.

The "Rhythm & Blues" term was created to replace the term "race music," which until then was the stardard catch-all phase used in reference to most music made by blacks at the time. After the "race music" term was deemed offensive, Billboard began using the Rhythm & Blues name that Jerry Wexler created. By the 1970's R&B was a blanket term used for the soul and funk genres as R&B was the most popular. It was later introduced into Britain in the 1960's due to the popularity of it in America with Pop & R&B icons such as Micheal Jackson.

Some say Rhythm and Blues was created by slaves as they used to sing and create music in order to communicate and pass messages a famous one being "wait in the water".

The Blues Brothers then furthered the R&B genre and became very popular as they juxtaposed the African American stereotype of R&B.

Icons such as Marvin Gaye and James Brown were very popular but now R&B has changed and is less soulfull.

R.Kelly is also a R&B and Soul icon aswell as Gospel, he is very popular as he added his own idiosyncratic style on R&B, others followed him such as Usher, and now icons today such as Drake.

James Brown R.Kelly Usher Drake