History Of R&B

HISTORY OF R&B


Our chosen genre which is R&B, previously known as rhythm and blues, has been gradually developing since the 1950's. Afro-Americans were the founders of R&B, it then spread across Europe until it became a worldwide genre, plunging into the USA. As the genre has expanded over the years and also geographically, it has changed gradually, it now has elements of rap, soul and funk. 
In the 1980's synthesizers and drum machine beats were added, and Michael Jackson became the most popular and influential R&B artist of the time. It was originally a mainly pop music genre, with the likes of Tina Turner and Whitney Houston. During the 1990's hip hop and rap became further incorporated into the R&B genre, with artists like Mariah Carey and Missy Elliot blurring the boundaries between each. In the 2000's R&B concentrated more on solo artists than groups and it became even more hip hop related. Alicia Keys and Rihanna were popular during this decade. During the 2000's a more youthful creative R&B sound was created which used pop rock, dance and electro-pop sounds in the genre.
R&B has many key conventions, some of which are stylistic and specific to the individual artist. Artists such as Rihanna, Christiana Aguilera and Kanye West fall under this category, and they portray many typical R&B themes. This genre of music is usually lyrically sexually provocative and the background music uses heavy bass beats. New style R&B has major use of drums and electric guitar which are used in almost all tracks. Break/street dancing is also associated with this genre- yet in Kanye West's 'Runaway' video he uses ballet dancers instead, which shows culture and stylistic differences. Our genre typically uses urban ideas, to create a fresh and youthful identity, the songs are easy to empathise with as they are usually about love, relationships and money, which is easy for the audience (usually teens) to relate to.