R & B Research Papers

Rhythm and blues, or R&B, is a popular African-American music style that sprang up in the 1940s. The phrase “Rhythm 'n ' Blues” has undertaken a numerous amount of shifts in message and meaning. It was frequently used to refer to music styles that developed from and incorporated electric blues, as well as gospel music. R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American experience of love, pain, and the quest for freedom and/or joy. Lyrics focus heavily on the themes of triumphs and failures in terms of relationships, freedom, aspirations, and sex.

Soul music is a popular music style that developed in the United States in the '50s and '60s. This is music that arose out of the black experience in America through the combines elements

Other forms of African-American music have traveled a more convoluted path to reach the modern era. Two examples are Hip-Hop and Rap. Many people mistake these two different forms although there are distinct differences between them. Rapping literally means “to converse” and predates the phenomenon known as hip-hop by centuries (Lincoln, 2010). Consequently, rapping has been used as a chanting or speaking art form rhyming lyrical form with or without an accompaniment and can be very powerful as a tool of self-expression. Depending on how you define it, Rap may very well date back to early African tribes and their practice of chanting in rhythmic fashion to induce trance states. Hip hop music style has brought in every style of music before it, giving it a “recycling on all classic” stigma. House music and techno, which essentially do the same thing as hip hop without the rapping, were soon developed after hip hop.

African-American music styles vary from the blues to zydeco, jazz to hip-hop, and from slave-era spirituals about personal endeavors and empowerment to the forefathers of rock & roll. It 's the absolute replete of the roots of America’s music. Many of the songs that have come to be synonymous with struggle, empowerment, human rights, and perseverance have come from the African-American community. African-American musicians continue to strongly influence the path of not only American music, but politics, civil rights, education, popular opinion, and the ever-evolving history of our nation (Ruehl,