Rhythm and blues

R&B (ditulis juga RnB, singkatan dari rhythm and blues) adalah genre musik populer yang menggabungkan jazz, gospel, dan blues, yang pertama kali diperkenalkan oleh pemusik Afrika-Amerika. Istilah ini pertama kali dipakai sebagai istilah pemasaran dalam musik di Amerika Serikat pada tahun 1947 oleh Jerry Wexler yang bekerja pada majalah Billboard.[1] Istilah ini menggantikan istilah musik ras dan kategori Billboard Harlem Hit Parade pada Juni 1949.[2] Tahun 1948, RCA Victor memasarkan musik kulit hitam dengan nama Blues and Rhythm. Frasa tersebut dibalik oleh Wexler di Atlantic Records, yang menjadi perusahaan rekaman yang memimpin bidang R&B pada tahun-tahun awal.[1]

Rhythm and blues (also known as R&B or RnB) is a popular music genre combining jazz, gospel, and blues influences, first performed by African American artists. The term was coined as a musical marketing term in the United States in 1947 by Jerry Wexler at Billboard magazine. It replaced the term race music (which originally came from within the black community, but was deemed offensive in the postwar world and the Billboard category Harlem Hit Parade in June 1949. The term was initially used to identify the rocking style of music that combined the 12 bar blues format and boogie-woogie with a back beat, which later became a fundamental element of rock and roll. In 1948, RCA Victor was marketing black music under the name Blues and Rhythm. The words were reversed by Wexler of Atlantic Records, the leading label in the R&B field in the early years. In Rock & Roll: An Unruly History (1995) Robert Palmer defines "Rhythm & Blues" as a catchall rubric used to refer to any music that was made by and for black Americans. In his 1981 book Deep Blues Palmer used "R&B" as a synonym for jump blues. Lawrence Cohn, author of Nothing but the Blues, writes that rhythm and blues was an umbrella term invented for industry convenience, which embraced all black music except classical music and religious music, unless a gospel song sold enough to break into the charts. By the 1970s, rhythm and blues was being used as a blanket term to describe soul and funk. Today the acronym R&B is almost always used instead of the full rhythm and blues, and mainstream use of the term refers to a modern version of soul and funk-influenced pop music that originated as disco became less favorable.