The genre I have chose is R&B… I have chosen R&B because it’s music I enjoy regularly listening too. I like R&B because 99% of the time the lyrics are clean and not too Volga. Listening to it keeps me in a good mood an the beats of the songs has a relaxation tone too it. depending on the type of mood I’m in depends on the type of artist I listen too because they all have there own techniques and lyrics. I also like R&B because it’s the type of music you can dance too and make up routines because of the continuous rhythm throughout the song its easy to catch the four beats.

Original R&B... Jerry Wexler Jerry Wexler came up with the term ‘R&B’ in R&B has been around from the 1940’s and ended in the 1950’s where it was then taken over by ‘contemporary R&B’. The term R&B replaced the term ‘race music’. It was called race music because this type of music originally came from within the black community. It was changed because it was said to be offensive. R&B style of music came from a mixture of electric blues, gospel and soul. R&B got its name from the beat and melody. The precursor of rhythm and blues came from jazz and blues, through the work from ‘The Hamfat’s and T-bone walker. R&B bands usually dressed in suits or had a uniform. Electric guitars was the lead instrument but the band would usually consist of a piano and a sax. The original R&B artist were: James Brown, Billy Wright, Big Joe Turner, Johnny Turner and Faye Adams.

Contemporary R&B… Contemporary R&B is the modern version of R&B which came about in the late 1980’s. today’s R&B is used to convey the style of African- American music after disco in the early 1980’s. ‘Urban contemporary’ is also another name for contemporary R&B, this consists of Hip-Hop, R&B and soul. R&B is today used to abbreviate the term rhythm and bass. R&B has severely modernized in the production style by using drum machines, backing rhythms and different vocal arrangements. Contemporary R&B artists are commonly known for using melisma. Top mainstream artists were, Michael Jackson, Prince, Stevie Wonder and Diana Ross. In the mid-90’s Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, TLC, SWV and Boys 11 Men, all brought contemporary R&B to the mainstream. Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson were 1 st and 2 nd most successful artists of the 90’s. In the minellium artist such as Beyonce and usher became huge after starting their career in the late 90’s.

Pioneers of R&B… The pioneers of R&B were Lionel Hampton, Ruth Brown, Louis Jordan. These are a few of the small number of people to bring R&B to mainstream.

controver sy… R&B started off as religious as the music was influenced by gospel. Illuminati and contemporary R&B In R&B today there is a new controversy over the illuminati cult. Most R&B and Hip-Hop artist are now conforming to this cult also commonly known as the freemason. The artist are involving imagery and symbolism into their music videos and also lyrics to allow their audience to recognize this.

Dress codes… In the 1940’s, when performing and doing videos R&B artists would wear suits and even custom made uniforms. Contemporary R&B In this generation of R&B, artist wear more revealing clothes. They were a lot of jewelry and tend to have a lot of colorful clothing and heavy make up. Original R&B

Old video’s vs. Modern video’s… older R&B video’s are in black and white most of the time. The women in the videos are fully covered and tend to be dressed up in formal wear with light make up and hair done up. In contemporary R&B video’s there’s always lights and special effects. The women are always wearing revealing clothes and heavy bright coloured make up. R&B videos have changed drastically from when R&B was first discovered. Not only has the dress codes changed because of the way society is today, but also technology has changed. The graphics are better, the lighting is better, colour has improved and special effects have been discovered.