How Did R & B Influence Today

As the development of R&B began to progress, influential R&B artists helped shape what R&B is today. Ray Charles and Richard Penniman, also known as Little Richard, were two of the most popular and influential R&B artists. Ray Charles was a pianist, singer, and arranger who dominated the R&B culture with his mixed blues and gospel style. Little Richard was a major R&B performer who was called “architect of Rock and Roll,” (Redman). Ray and Richard are the artists that influenced the development of R&B, as well as other individuals, as they were becoming artists. Another influential artist is Aretha Franklin who's vocals made her be nicknamed the Queen of Soul. Aretha Franklin started her music career as a teenage gospel star and has been performing

R&B became more than just African American music as it started to attract whites and influenced them to create other music genres and incorporate R&B into their music (Ward). As R&B was starting to attract whites, it give more respect towards African Americans, but it also was the start of new music genres. R&B’s sound and style influenced whites and started the rise of rock and roll which in today’s society is a popular form of American music (Cahoon). If it were not for R&B, many music genres such as rock and roll which was amazingly popular would not have developed. Early R&B was the start of what became rock and roll today. “In its fancy, rock and roll was very much the product of white groups doing covers or reworkings of earlier R&B songs by black artists, usually cleaned up for the mainstream (white) audiences,” (EHow). Rock and roll provides elements of rhythm and blues into its music and although rock and roll has a more intense sound while rhythm and blues has a softer sound, rock and roll derived from blues elements; influences from blues music made an impact to the birth of rock and roll. “R&B artist Miguel Pimentel recently told NPR, ‘Historically, black music has influenced other cultures and other genres. Rock would have never happened without the blues,’ (Redman). Without R&B many genres of music in American culture would have never been created or

R&B music in the past was mainly about romance and love, however nowadays R&B music lack the romance in their lyrics. “Listening to black music today is depressing. Songs on today’s urban radio playlists are drained of romance, tenderness, and seduction,” (Blake). In the 1950s and 60s, R&B lyrics conveyed an upbeat feeling of love and sexuality, but as artists from today’s generation are coming from troubled lives, R&B today is more depressing and serious. “Larry Dunn says a new generation of black R&B artists is more cynical because more come from broken holes and broken communities,” (Blake). In the past R&B focused more on romance, however as kids of the new generation were coming from broken communities, R&B went from love to distrust because of how and where they grew up. R&B lyrics convey meaning which connects the listeners to the music. R&B lyrics has purpose and meaning that others can feel and relate to (Blake). R&B lyrics connect with the audience and makes the audience feel what the artists are feeling and as lyrics were analyzed it expresses a story. “We had so much harmony, so much purpose. Our purpose was the message in the music, and that message was to love one another and to do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” (Blake). R&B was a style of music that Americans could relate to.