Genre

R&B

Jerry Wexler was a music journalist, record producer and he also worked for Billboard magazine in 1948. He was the person to come up with the term 'Rhythm and Blues' or 'R&B'. Rhythm and Blues replaced the old term 'Race Music' which was used within the black community but was soon deemed offensive. Usually in this genre, R&B is popular African-American music that began around the 1940's. It can be said that R&B is inspired by the already established music genres such as Jazz, Gospel and Blues. Rhythm and Blues can be said to be inspired by gospel and religious ways from the African churches, especially in the southern and mid western regions of the United States. Church members were always told and encouraged to express themselves and freely show their faiths. This gave people the ability to express themselves and personal experiences in songs and melodies of the rhythm and blues style. However, R&B has changed over the years and by the time it had got the year 2000 it was completely different. R&B and hip hop had merged so much that the only way of being able to tell the to types of genres apart was whether the vocals were rapped or sung. And as well as this, R&B artists made the move to being solo artists rather than in groups as the 2000's progressed. For example Beyonce who was once in the group 'Destiny's Child'.