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 ...

Hip-hop has always been about innovation, but today’s artists are taking things to a whole new level. From bending vocal tones to inventing unpredictable flows, the ...

The journey of hip-hop music spans a remarkable and multifaceted history, captivating audiences for over five decades. Hip-hop started in the Bronx, NYC, in the early 1970s. It began when the city was ...

Funk allowed Black musicians and their audiences to shapeshift and speak truth to power—even while speaking in tongues. But as Stanley Nelson and Nicole London’s documentary WE WANT THE FUNK! reveals, ...

Hip-hop was born in the break — that moment when a song’s vocals dropped, instruments quieted down and the beat took the stage. At the hands of the DJs, that break moment became more: a composition in ...

This summer marks a vital anniversary in the history of American music. Fifty years ago, on Aug. 11, 1973, a Jamaican-born DJ named Kool Herc helped his sister throw a back-to-school party in the ...