Rhythm and blues abbreviated as R&B It is a blues-influenced genre that has been played primarily by African Americans since the late 1930s. The term 'Rhythm and Blues' was first introduced in the late 1940s, when a Billboard magazine reporter named Jerry Wexler created the term for Billboard to designate upbeat popular music performed by African-American artists, at the time, combining Blues and Jazz.
The term "Rhythm & Blues" was created to replace the name it used to have which was "career music", which until then was the phrase used to refer to most of the music made by blacks at that time. The term "career music" began to be considered offensive, Billboard began to use the name Rhythm & Blues created by the reporter Wexler.
In the 1950s, Rhythm and Blues music was associated with black youth and was commonly heard in nightclubs, and it was often regarded as a vulgar art style compared to the music genre called Jazz. Hip hop music also began to emerge and became more popular, after this R&B was considered as love songs.
By 1970, R&B grew into a term that included various forms of music such as soul music and funk. Today this name is used to refer to the majority of urban music sung.
It has this name for the rhythmic part of the bars, in the second and fourth time they are accentuated in each measure, and the liberal use of a background time that is used. On the blues side, it's because the lyrics and melodies of the songs were almost always sad, especially around the time of World War II. As time progressed it was shortened to R&B for convenience.
R&B is characterized by combining musical elements of soul and hip-hop. Some musical elements of this genre that are easy to recognize are like disco-influenced string sounds, vocal arrangements with close harmonies, and also heavily influenced by hip-hop. The voice of the music, some parts are improvised depending on the mood of the singer, which makes the emotion that the song wants to convey makes it more intense and easier to feel.
R&B can be found in many parts, in concerts, on the street, it is a genre not so well known because it is confused or not recognized but in reality it is widely listened to.
There are many well-known artists who sing this genre of music such as Beyonce, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Drake, and Rihanna. Another performer and my favorite is Justin Bieber who sings mainly pop and is well known for that as he has been named the prince of pop, but he has also experimented and some of his songs are considered R&B for the sounds and composition they have.
