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Rhythm and blues (R&B), which combines soulful singing and a strong backbeat, was the most popular music created by and for African Americans between the end of World War II (1941-45) and the early 1960s.

Rhythm and Blues

The term “rhythm and blues,” often called “R&B,” originated in the 1940s when it replaced “race music” as a general marketing term for all African American music, though it usually referred only to secular, not religious music.

Explores the roots of rock in such a way as to illuminate the natural progression of musical styles.

If rock and roll can be seen as a white reading of rhythm and blues, soul is a return to African American music’s roots—gospel and blues. The style is marked by searing vocal intensity, use of church-rooted call-and-response, and extravagant melisma.