Rhythm and blues

Rhythm and blues, often shortened to R&B or R'n'B, is a style of popular music that began in African American communities during the 1940s. Record companies first used the term to label recordings aimed mainly at Black audiences, at a time when a "rocking, jazz based music" with a "heavy, insistent beat" was gaining traction. The meaning of "rhythm and blues" has changed several times: in the early 1950s, it often referred to blues records; by the mid-1950s, after it helped shape rock and roll, the term broadened to include styles derived from electric blues, gospel, and soul; and by the 1970s, it became a catchall for soul and funk. In the late 1980s, a newer form called contemporary R&B emerged, blending rhythm and blues with elements of jazz, soul, funk, disco, blues, and electronic music.

The term "rhythm and blues" was popularized by Billboard magazine's Jerry Wexler in 1948, though Billboard had used it as early as 1943. Before that, the magazine's chart for songs popular among Black Americans was called the Harlem Hit Parade, launched in 1942. "Rhythm and Blues" replaced the earlier label "race music," a term coined by Okeh producer Ralph Peer from the African American press's self-description as "people of race." Billboard used "Rhythm and Blues" for its chart from June 1949 until August 1969, when it was renamed "Best Selling Soul Singles." Before this shift, some record companies had already swapped "race music" for "sepia series." Over time, the abbreviation "R&B" came to cover a wide range of styles, including soul, funk, disco, and later contemporary R&B, reflecting changes in production, audience, and marketing.

In the early 1950s, "rhythm & blues" was often applied to blues records. Writer Robert Palmer called it "a catchall term referring to any music that was made by and for black Americans," sometimes using it as a synonym for jump blues. AllMusic, however, distinguishes it from jump blues due to R&B's stronger gospel influences. Lawrence Cohn described "rhythm and blues" as an umbrella term invented for industry convenience, covering all Black music except classical and religious music—unless a gospel song sold well enough to chart. Into the 21st century, R&B has sometimes been used to categorize music made by Black musicians, separate from styles by other musicians.

From the 1950s through the 1970s, commercial R&B bands typically included piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, and saxophone, sometimes with background vocalists. Arrangements were rehearsed to seem effortless, with simple, repetitive parts that created momentum and rhythmic interplay, producing mellow, lilting, often hypnotic textures without highlighting any single sound. Singers were emotionally engaged with lyrics, often intensely, yet remained cool, relaxed, and in control. Bands wore suits or uniforms, a practice tied to the modern popular music R&B performers aimed to dominate. Lyrics often felt fatalistic, and music followed predictable chord patterns and structures. Themes frequently captured the African American experience of pain, the search for freedom and joy, and triumphs and failures in relationships, economics, and aspirations.

A 2016 Smithsonian Institution publication summarized the genre's origins as "a distinctly African-American music drawing from the deep tributaries of African American expressive culture," blending jump blues, big band swing, gospel, boogie, and blues, developed over a thirty-year period bridging legal segregation, international conflicts, and the civil rights struggle. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame cites originators like Joe Turner's big band, Louis Jordan's Tympany Five, James Brown, and LaVern Baker, noting that "Louis Jordan joined Turner in laying the foundation for R&B in the 1940s, cutting one swinging rhythm & blues masterpiece after another." Other cornerstones of R&B and its transformation into rock and roll include Etta James, Fats Domino, Roy Brown, Little Richard, and Ruth Brown, along with doo-wop groups such as the Orioles, the Ravens, and the Dominoes. The term "rock and roll" carried a strong sexual connotation in jump blues and R&B, but when DJ Alan Freed used it on mainstream radio in the mid-1950s, that sexual component was downplayed.