Rythm and blues , frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B,
is a genre of popular music that originated within African-American
communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies
to describe recordings marketed predominantly to African Americans, at a
time when "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 a piano, one or two
guitars, bass, drums, one or more saxophones, and sometimes background
vocalists.
R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American history and
experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy, as well as triumphs
and failures in terms of societal racism, oppression, relationships,
economics, and aspirations.