R&B in the 1970s was a defining era—one where soul, funk, blues, and disco converged to shape the sound of a generation. Solo ...

Who’s rising now: Artists such as Destin Conrad, Isaiah Falls, Ama, and Gabriel Jacoby are gaining attention for blending classic R&B emotion with fresh sonic experimentation. How the sound shifts: ...

Ironic, then, that such a shift seems to have been ushered in by a death — not of R&B proper, mind you, but of one of its greatest modern pacesetters: The Weeknd. Since 2011, the persona inhabited by ...

Hip-hop’s takeover of R&B over the past decade altered its sound as soul artists aggressively pulled away from the genre’s conventional boundaries and embraced rap. Given the boys’ club culture of rap ...

A group of young singer-songwriters have transformed the genre by looking backward, without getting stuck in the past. Here and below are seven of the many contemporary artists who are redefining and ...

Host Erykah Badu attends the 2016 Soul Train Music Awards at the Orleans Arena on November 6, 2016 in Las Vegas. The combination of rhythm and blues spurred the development of the culture and genre ...

Welcome to The State of R&B, ESSENCE’s look at the past, present and future of rhythm and blues. In this piece, ESSENCE editor Rivéa Ruff reports on the blending of hip-hop and R&B. Since the ...

WITH US MUSIC LOVERS. YOU’LL WANT TO HEAD TO HIGH POINT THIS WEEKEND. OKAY. THEY ARE HOLDING THEIR FIRST EVER R&B SOUL PICNIC ON SATURDAY. THE GOOD VIBES WILL BE HAPPENING INSIDE OF OAK HOLLOW ...