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What is R&B?
In this article, we have examined the role of RnB in the historical process, which describes the painful experience of African Americans and search for freedom and joy in a lyrical theme.
The term ‘Rhythm’ and ‘Blues’, abbreviated as R&B or RnB, was interpreted as a less aggressive type of marketing in the US in the late 1940s. Designed for African-American audiences at the time, R&B has changed over the course of its audience. The first period called -race music- was designed for African-American audiences, and consisted of blues-style song structures and jazz instrumentation, combined with the heavy sound of electric guitar and bass sounds. R&B continued to develop rapidly over the years for the emergence of contemporary sounds.
From the 1940s to the 1970s, an RnB group consisted of one or two electric guitars, an electric bass, two pianos, a drum and two saxophones. South American artists influenced American R&B artists in the late 1950s to make this form more prominent. African-American R&B artists then influenced white rock bands, and in the late 1970s, R&B music also referred to various genres such as soul, disco and funk. The original style of R&B, led by names like Didley and Chuck Berry, focused on “boogie” rhythms. After the end of World War II, the R&B music genre was resumed to develop with a surprising call made by the government for new voices.
Today R&B is characterized by a more luminous production and does not reveal the saxophone and the piano. Beats and vocals perform quite well due to the prevalence of hip-hop. Since the 1990s, R&B artists have often collaborated with hip-hop artists to blur the lines between the two genres.
The first examples of R&B were given by the artists, such as Chuck Berry, Steve Wonder, Dionne Warwick and Aretha Franklin. In the 1980s when the rock’n roll was becoming popular Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey came to the forefront.. Keyshia Cole, Usher, Destiny’s Child, Beyonce, Pussycat Dolls, Justin Timberlake, Missy Elliot, Craig David, Natasha Bedingfield and Amy Winehouse are among the shining representatives in 2000s.
Lastly, if you want to explore R&B more deeply, which has been in our lives since the 1900s and it is impossible to think independently of the Jazz, we recommend that you read our History of Jazz Music.
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