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Genre guide

R&B.
Rhythm, soul, and feeling.

Rhythm and blues began in the 1940s as the powerful, danceable music of Black America, fusing blues, jazz, and gospel into something urgent and new. It gave rise to soul and funk, shaped the sound of Motown, and evolved across the decades into contemporary R&B - smooth, intimate, and built around the expressive human voice. From Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin to Marvin Gaye and today's genre-blurring stars, R&B has remained the beating heart of popular music: emotional, rhythmic, and deeply felt.

Browse featured R&B artists

From the genre's founders to the names still being discovered.

R&B articles
6 days ago
Mýa Spent Eight Years Making a Funk Album. It Was Worth the Wait.
Mýa's Retrospect, her first album in eight years, is a 16-track deep dive into '70s and '80s funk and soul, produced alongside longtime collaborator Lamar "MyGuyMars" Edwards — and it's the most fully realized argument yet for what independent R&B can sound like entirely on its own terms.
6 days ago
Kehlani Knows Exactly Who She Is Now — and She Brought Receipts
Kehlani's self-titled fifth album, released on her 31st birthday via Atlantic Records, is a 17-track deep dive into millennial R&B featuring Brandy, Usher, Missy Elliott, Cardi B, T-Pain, Lil Jon, and Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis — a confident declaration of identity from an artist who just won her first two Grammys and debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200.