Rhythm and blues (R&B) is a music genre that evolved from black American music styles such as blues and jazz in the 1940s. Rhythm and blues music’s style, chord structure, and rhythms influenced both black and white American pop music in the twentieth century. The definition of this term widened in the late twentieth century to include any music that is predominantly black.
The blues, as its name implies, were a major influence on rhythm and blues music. The blues is a musical genre based on a 12-measure chord progression that includes four measures of the I chord, two measures of the IV chord, two measures of the I chord, one measure of the V or V7 chord, one measure of the IV chord, and two measures of the I chord. In the 1940s and 1950s, rhythm and blues music adopted this progression, sometimes tweaking it along the way, and made it more mainstream American pop music.
Jazz, swing, and boogie are other influences on rhythm and blues. Typically, early R&B music featured a solo vocalist accompanied a brass-heavy orchestra. It had strong, often syncopated rhythms that were ideal for a dance hall.
There was a give-and-take relationship between rhythm and blues and rock and roll, especially in the 1950s. Despite the fact that the first was more prevalent in black culture and the second was more prevalent in white culture, the two frequently borrowed from one another. For example, Elvis Presley recorded a number of songs with blues-inspired structures and vocal styles. “Hound Dog” was one of the most well-known of these.
Many black artists used their music as a platform to speak out against segregation and racial inequalities in the years leading up to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. “When Will I Get To Be Called A Man?” Big Bill Broonzy depicts the life of a black man who is constantly called “boy” white people. Many other songs had undercurrents of social unrest, but most music was not as explicit about racial themes as this song.
Rhythm and blues has been used to describe any music style performed African American musicians and geared primarily toward African American audiences since the 1980s. This covers a wide range of genres, including gospel, soul, and rap. From both religious and secular perspectives, contemporary R&B music continues to address themes of injustice in American society.