Music Facts: R&B

• R&B, short for "rhythm and blues," was born in African American communities in the 1940s.

• R&B's stylistic origins include jazz, blues, spirituals, gospel, boogie-woogie, jump blues, and swing.

• In 2017, rap and R&B became the biggest music genre in the U.S., in terms of total consumption, surpassing rock for the first time ever.

• Famous recent R&B GRAMMY winners include John Legend, Anderson .Paak, H.E.R., and Bruno Mars.

• At the 63rd Annual GRAMMY Awards in 2021, the Recording Academy introduced the Best Progressive R&B Album category, formerly known as the Best Urban Contemporary Album category, to "appropriately categorize and describe this subgenre" and reflect a "more accurate definition to describe the merit or characteristics of music compositions or performances themselves within the genre of R&B."