When Rhythm and Blues music first began, essentially all of the artists were African American, as was the audience receiving the music. In a white-dominated society, these artists found it difficult to spread their blend of soulful vocals and hip-hop beats to a large audience . Because of this societal segregation, R&B music remained "Black" music for many years. As white society slowly became acquainted with Rhythm and Blues, and consequently the music was exposed to a larger audience, R&B exploded onto the music scene. Zondra Hughes, in her EBONY article Are Whites Stealing Rhythm and Blues? agrees: "since the majority of R&B artists were black, and most radio station owners were white, many artists had difficulty getting their music on the air. Later, as white population became exposed to R&B, the genre boomed" (Hughes 1). Originating as a musical style performed by African Americans for African American audiences, Rhythm and Blues music, throughout the 1950's and 1970's, was seized by the white-dominated music industry, stripped of its original values and sound, and distributed to popular mainstream artists of the times. The music was, in turn, altered to fit each particular artists" style, which has ultimately led to the creation of the more diverse R&B genre of the 1990's: a music comprised of multicultural artists and multicultural audiences. .
The roots of R&B music go back to the times of slavery. African Americans working on plantation fields used music as a way of communicating with each other and as a forcible form of expression. The deep, soulful, and powerful mix of chanting, hollering, shouting and crooning that defined this "field music" was filled with every emotion from joy to sorrow; pleasure to pain; and hope to despair. Emerging simultaneously at this time was Gospel music. It was very uncommon for slaves to have actual churches to attend because of harsh rules laid down by white authorities.