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.