About R&B

Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated as R&B or RnB,
is a genre of popular African-American music that
originated in the 1940s. The term was originally
used by record companies to describe recordings
marketed predominantly to urban African Americans,
at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music
with a heavy, insistent beat" was becoming more
popular. In the commercial rhythm and blues music
typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands
usually consisted of piano, one or two guitars, bass,
drums, saxophone, and sometimes background vocalists.
R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American
experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy.
Lyrics focus heavily on the themes of triumphs and
failures in terms of relationships, freedom, economics,
aspirations.