Contemporary R&B

Contemporary R&B is a popular music genre, originating from African-American musicians in the 1970s that combines rhythm and blues with elements of pop, disco, funk, soul, jazz, blues, electronic and hip-hop. The incorporation of disco and electronic textures and production styles, which came to prominence since the 2010s decade, brought forth a style called electro-R&B.

The genre features a distinctive record production style and a smooth, lush style of vocal arrangement. Electronic influences and the use of hip-hop or dance-inspired beats are typical, although the roughness and grit inherent in hip-hop may be reduced and smoothed out. Contemporary R&B vocalists often use melisma, and since the mid-1980s, R&B rhythms have been combined with elements of hip-hop culture and music, soul culture and soul music.

Precursors

According to Geoffrey Himes speaking in 1989, the progressive soul movement of the early 1970s "expanded the musical and lyrical boundaries of [R&B] in ways that haven't been equaled since". This movement was led by soul singers, songwriters and producers such as Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, and Stevie Wonder. Norman Whitfield's productions at Motown, the record label of Gaye, were also pioneering for setting the soul vocals and simple hooks of earlier rhythm and blues records against strong backbeats, vocal harmonies, and orchestral sounds, all of which thickened the texture of the music. Gaye's own music on albums such as What's Going On (1971) incorporated jazz influences that led the genre into a looser musical direction.

The nearest precursor to contemporary R&B came at the end of the disco era in the late 1970s, when Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones added more electronic elements to the sound of the time, creating a smoother dancefloor-friendly style. The first result was Off the Wall (1979), which—according to Stephen Thomas Erlewine from AllMusic—"was a visionary album, that found a way to break disco wide open into a new world where the beat was undeniable, but not the primary focus" and "was part of a colorful tapestry of lush ballads and strings, smooth soul and pop, soft rock, and alluring funk".