Rhythm and Blues (RnB) originated in the USA among black slaves and chain gangs. To keep spirits up the chain gangs would sing in black American English so the guards wouldn't necessarily know what they were saying. Another influence on RnB is the 'call and response' which is when in Church a group of people would sing up beat tempo Christian songs. Call and response is a way of communicating. It requires at least two people, with the first person introducing an idea and the second individual finishing or repeating it. For example, "Praise the Lord", "Thank you Jesus" etc.
An example of this is in the film Forrest Gump:
There are a number of protest themes that have been included in the RnB genre, two examples are; black panthers and black lives matter. Sam Cooke produced one of the most powerful songs about social change called; 'A Change Is Gonna Come'. The song was one of the first overtly political songs by an R&B artist. Although it was only a moderately successful commercially when it was released in the mid-1960s, it eventually became an anthem for the civil rights movement.
At first from the 1960s to the 1970s, RnB was very popular in the South of America as there was a higher black population. As there was little money, musical instruments were limited, the genre mainly consisted of a drum/guitar basis and female singing voices. There was a rise in popularity with the genre RnB in the 1980s due to Whitney Houston. One of her most famous songs in the 80s
was: The Greatest Love of All, which topped the charts in Australia, Canada and the USA, was a cover of George Benson's song in 1977.
Rhythm and Blues became even more popular in the 1990s because of Michael Jackson, his music videos, including those of 'Beat it', 'Billie Jean' and 'Thriller' from his 1982 album Thriller, are credited with breaking racial barriers. The majority of Michael Jackson's music was a pop and RnB hybrid genre.
At the start of the 21st century, RnB became very popular with the Hispanic and Black community which attracted a white audience. This was influenced by pop and RnB merging together. TV shows depicting RnB/pop stars became very popular, for example; pimp my ride, hosted by Xzibit.
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