Rhythm and blues originated in the 1940s as a popular music type starting with African Americans. Beginning as an urban mixture of blues and jazz it quickly became a huge part of American culture and would become the basis of rock and roll and rap music. R&B holds many gospel influences and can be categorized as soul music. the main cities centered around R&B were Chicago, New York, Detroit and Los Angeles. Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder are huge names within the R&B industry as well as Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, and Smokey Robinson.
