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What exactly does "RnB" mean

Paul L

Paul L

coffee lounge for me
Not sure if this has bee discussed before and something that has quietly puzzled me for some time. Originally to my knowledge R and B meant rhythm and blues and was associated with the likes of the Rolling Stones in the 1960s.

Somewhere along the line it came to mean black sub-culture or maybe mainstream and whilst to my ears is not different from rap or hip hop I presume it is. I saw a TV advert last night that looked more like modern pop music.

How did the original meaning change to what it is today and is it a title for current street music rather than a particular musical style?
 
Rhythm and Blues means great music that's worth listening to.

RnB means turn off now :D
 
The Wikipedia article on the subject is quite good.

But basically it's changed it's meaning over the years. It started out in the late 40 and early 50s to mean Black American Music. I hadn't realised Jerry Wexler invented the term as an alternative to "Race Music" though.

You could argue that the Rolling Stones appropriation of the term is in some ways less appropriate than it's current usage ... but I know what you mean.
 
these days - it would appear that RnB is any (well, perhaps not hip hop or rap) music that's done by a black person imo...
 
Oh please. How old do you some of you sound?

Yes, a lot of / most contemporary RnB is dross, but something like Beyonce's Crazy In Love is just a great song that any kids will dance to.

I'll assume the OP is being deliberately naive, and leave it there.
 
RnB
–noun
1.Vulgar.
a. excrement.
b. an act of defecation.
2. Slang: Sometimes Vulgar.
a. nonsense; drivel.
b. falsehood, exaggeration, propaganda, or the like.
3. refuse; rubbish; junk; litter: Will you clean up that crap!
 
R & B,means Rhythm and Blues and was in my experience originally applied to the sort of stuff popularised by the likes of Chuck Berry, Jimmy Reed, Bo Diddley, Ray Charles and many others. This was indeed largely copied by the Stones and countless other bands in the UK. I don't know who coined the term.
In my experience, the term was expanded a bit in the 60s to include a wider range of black American music including a lot of Motown and similar output from other labels such as Minit etc, though oddly I can't remember it being applied to the sort of soul produced by Stax/Atlantic.

Much later RnB seems to have appeared... as opposed to R&B. My daughter assures me that RnB means Rhythm and Bass.. Whatever... it's mostly tripe.

Mull
 
Uncle Ants said:
The Wikipedia article on the subject is quite good.

But basically it's changed it's meaning over the years. It started out in the late 40 and early 50s to mean Black American Music. I hadn't realised Jerry Wexler invented the term as an alternative to "Race Music" though.

You could argue that the Rolling Stones appropriation of the term is in some ways less appropriate than it's current usage ... but I know what you mean.
Click to expand...

Interesting article. I remember really hating New Jack Swing (shiver!) but I've never even heard of Quiet Storm!
 
1940s-50s: popular music performed by black people for a largely urban audience made up principally of black underprivileged people.

1990s-2000s: popular music performed by black people for a largely urban audience made up principally of black underprivileged people.

Oh, er, hang on a minute.;)
 
stevec67 said:
1940s-50s: popular music performed by black people for a largely urban audience made up principally of black underprivileged people.

1990s-2000s: popular music performed by black people for a largely urban audience made up principally of black underprivileged people.

Oh, er, hang on a minute.;)
Click to expand...

I'm not sure that's right - according to a few hiphop documentaries I've seen, the primary buyers of 'gangster rap' in the 90s were middle class white kids full of middle class angst & all that. So it could be similar for RnB nowadays. Middle class kids are certainly more likely to have the spare cash for music, where as the underprivileged won't have. Although perhaps the middle class white kids download it all for free anyway, which negates my whole argument. Oh well :)
 
Anex said:
I'm not sure that's right - according to a few hiphop documentaries I've seen, the primary buyers of 'gangster rap' in the 90s were middle class white kids full of middle class angst & all that.
Click to expand...

Is this actually true though? I mean, I'm sure it attracted a certain middle class white kid rebel constituency, but it doesn't mean they were the only people buying it - I suspect it was pretty popular among said black urban population - or they were listening to stuff more recognisably contemporary RnB. I doubt Britpop was all that popular in South Central LA :)

One thing I know. The bloke I met who was trying to persuade me that the bloody Hamsters were "proper" RnB, unlike "all this rubbish modern black music" didn't know his dick from his elbow. Btw I don't much like contemporary RnB but I can sort of understand why it's RnB as well as Little Richard being RnB - there's a continuum.
 
Very helpful thread, and good Wiki article. I have been puzzled by the same question. Over the years I had rationalized it to something like "origins of rock & roll" morphing into "Blues gone commercial with added Brass section". Luther Allison etc. But then (in the 90s) it seemed to be applied to a whole lot of stuff where the brass section and the warbling vocalist(s) had pushed out any trace of blues. It seems that this is something quite different, cleverly called "contemporary R&B" to finish confusing the ennemy. The warbling (Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey) is apparently called melisma, which makes it sound much better.
 
PsB said:
Very helpful thread, and good Wiki article. I have been puzzled by the same question. Over the years I had rationalized it to something like "origins of rock & roll" morphing into "Blues gone commercial with added Brass section". Luther Allison etc. But then (in the 90s) it seemed to be applied to a whole lot of stuff where the brass section and the warbling vocalist(s) had pushed out any trace of blues. It seems that this is something quite different, cleverly called "contemporary R&B" to finish confusing the ennemy. The warbling (Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey) is apparently called melisma, which makes it sound much better.
Click to expand...

I'd never heard of Melisma 'til you wrote that, PsB. Never even knew it had a name, let alone the fact that in one form or another it's been around for a long time.
 
Any of you heard 'Rhythm & Blues Alibi' by Gomez off 'Liquid Skin' which basically slates what's passed off for R&B these days with the same regurgitated crap. The lyrics go...

You can write your tunes with rhythm and blues as your alibi
You can sell your soul and lay the blame on the passers-by
You shake your body on the TV screen
It seems to me, you'd try anything twice
You can swing it out and use it as your aphrodisiac
You can give it to me, to me
Plain to see that I'll give it you back
You let it flow, let it go, there's nothing to it
Anyone can try anything twice, try anything twice

Chorus
Chasing after stories that have already been told
Could not look old Son House in the eyes
Unaware you carry such a fragile load
But I've got yours, and you've got mine
It's your rhythm and blues alibi

Sums it up for me, although don't even get me started on what people try to pass off as 'Soul' these days. There are however some great exceptions with Sharon Jones, Nicole Willis etc., but when Peter Andre starts blabbing that he wants to make a more 'soulful' record we're all f*cked.
 
I've always believed that every genre of music has it's quality end of the spectrum.

Apart from so called R&B. Utter, utter shite.
 
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