These days, urban music can encompass dance pop, quiet-storm soul, and hardcore hip-hop, from Rihanna to Charlie Wilson, from Jill Scott to Lil Wayne in "How to Love" mode. This would all be confusing, except for one thing: You know an R&B track when you hear it. That's why our Urban Hits station mixes tracks from genre queens Beyoncé and Mary J Blige with adult-contemporary goddess Adele and rap heroine Nicki Minaj. All of them contribute to our current understanding of R&B as less of a fixed genre (or a fixed race) than an aesthetic. It's a style of music with deep roots in soul and an appreciation of pop music's boundless creativity. Most importantly, it retains the ability to speak to a wide international audience. So don't be surprised if you hear Rick Ross' "Aston Martin Music" after Trey Songz "Bottoms Up." This is the sound of R&B in 2011.Listen Now: Urban Hits
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Motown's indelible impact on pop-music history is a direct result of the talent on the Detroit-born label's roster. Berry Gordy and his team sussed out the most skilled and (equally as important) the most likable kids they could find, often plucking actual kids out of obscurity (and high school), turning them into polished, professional pop stars. But Motown's success was also undoubtedly due to the well-oiled, machine-like way the studio ran, taking ridiculously young diamonds in the rough and putting them through the label's "factory" system, which included training in everything from music and dance to, yes, fashion and manners. 
It's been a few months since we've done a roundup of new R&B albums. The summer was quiet, save for urban pop efforts from Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland, Lloyd and others. But the end of the year is usually prime time for soul artists, so the genre's output has increased. Perhaps the approaching winter months are to thank, inviting us to cuddle with our loved ones; more cynically, the perception that soul listeners skew older and stick to the classics may result in fewer new releases than most other genres enjoy. No matter the reason for the delay, I'm glad to finally hear some new soul music.
I've made a personalized mixtape every month for the last five years, combining au courant new hits, old favorites, random stuff overheard in convenience stores, Songs of Personal Emotional Relevance (the one from August 2008 mostly involves my wedding, which explains, for example, "
It's a bit late to celebrate Juneteenth. After all, the annual holiday commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States doesn't take place in the middle of September, but at the beginning of summer, on June 19. Perhaps it's the onset of fall, though, that makes our thoughts turn to warmer months and memories of park jams, barbecue and family reunions.
Recently, I scoured the song catalogs for the video games Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Both contain gobs of questionable selections, including indie fluff by 
It's impossible to pay tribute to the late songwriter 
When 
So first off, welcome to the '90s! Even if it still kind of feels more like the last gasp of the '80s: hair metal is almost over but doesn't know it yet, so it's still all over MTV, with songs about cherry pie (RIP 
Dance variety shows that targeted younger fans had long been a staple of pop music by the time Chicago DJ and concert promoter Don Cornelius premiered Soul Train in 1970. But with the first howl of "Soooooul Train!" the beloved result irrevocably transformed the heavily whitewashed model of such earlier programs as American Bandstand. The focus on African-American artists and, well, soul music -- Motown, funk, classic R&B, Philly soul, and, later, disco and hip-hop -- made the show a cultural hub for African-American audiences, and brought that culture to the white mainstream, introducing viewers across the United States to new fashions, dances and music. 
The year 1983 must have been a crazy time to be a black teenager. 
One of music's biggest stars has gifted us with one of this summer's biggest albums: yeah, you might say 
When we think of 
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After three solo albums and a full tour of duty in 
Welcome back to 
By 1998, 
One aspect of summer that never fails to surprise is that the year is now nearly half over: we are closer to 2011's year-end critics-poll season than we are to 2010's. You've started drafting your own Top 10 list already, right? No? You haven't? Don't panic: here, Rhapsody's genre editors each pick their five favorite records of the year so far. How many will survive until November? Which ones will be replaced by Lil Wayne, by Beyoncé, by the soundtrack to Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark? Time will tell, but for now, here are our picks for the year's best, half a year early. 
Summer jams. Everyone's got one. That song that evokes instant images of sun and fun, that makes you smell the barbecue and taste the daiquiri, that just sings summer to you. But what does your summer jam of choice say about you and, more importantly, your summer personality? We've developed this handy-dandy little guide to psychoanalyzing your summer anthem —or at least finding the perfect drink to pair with it.
Do a little dance y'all! (Like this y'all, like that y'all!) Feel the groove! (I feel it, I feel it now!) Make a little love now! (Ooh, aah, ooh ooh, aah!) This party's at the funhouse, we're rocking high-top fades, Cross Colours tees and high-top Jordans, and the sound is the New Jack Swing.
Humor in soul music hasn't been the same since everyone went hardcore in the late '80s. These days, if you want to cut a joke, you can't just make a corny novelty song like Bobby Jimmy & the Critters' "Roaches." You've got to do it cool and use plenty of ironic asides, sly put-downs and slang-filled allusions. 
The world of soul music may not generate as much product as rock or hip-hop, but it tends to have an outsized impact. Two of this year's best-selling records thus far came from Adele and Marsha Ambrosius, while Chris Brown's comeback album may be the most controversial. Beyond the headliners, there were troubadours like Noel Gourdin, Anthony David and Ginuwine, men who exemplified vintage R&B, and a lineage that stretches back to the late Teddy Pendergrass. Whether it's the Afropean neo-soul of Les Nubians or the dance pop gospel of Jennifer Hudson, when you hear soul music, you know it.
When it comes to adventures in music, you can do a lot worse than Coachella - a kaleidoscope of bands and fans spanning all manner of genres and scenes. Rhapsody sent its rock editor, 
Here at Rhapsody, none of us were high school age back in 1965, so we can only imagine what a genuine go-go was like. Our thoughts turn to the scene in Malcolm X when his assassins tour the Audubon Ballroom during a youth dance the night before he was killed, casing the joint while kids shuffle and stomp to 
Talk about "Hands on a Hard Body": for a certain species of auto-shop student, back in 1995, tricked-out rides were raised to the level of an art form. And while all kinds of hip-hop fueled their subwoofers, surely the most potent strain was G-funk, with its slinky leads and suggestive bounce, rolling and purring like an El Dorado.
What is the cost of forgiveness? 
Celebrated author and music journalist 
Much of soul history has been dominated by powerhouse African American singers — rightly so. Soul is often couched in the pain and joy, trials and tribulations of African American experiences. Every so often, however, along comes a white girl who has the blues — or manages to sing like she does, belting her way through one soul style or another with a big voice and bigger heart. 
Before we get started, it bears remembering that the black community is not monolithic. There are various segments within it just like any other. Just as there is a pop mainstream, there is a black equivalent, too. Historically speaking, black radio programmers can be more conservative than their white counterparts. Stars have long complained of being unable to crack black radio playlists, from Bob Marley to 
It's impossible to summarize the contributions of black musicians to our cultural history with a few random albums. Some of the innovators we could not fit into this short list include 
Released in late 1993, 
In his 1988 book, The Death of Rhythm & Blues, Nelson George talks a lot about how, starting in the late '70s, crossover of white artists compromised the role of black radio. An old R&B disc jockey named Jack Gibson, who'd worked in radio since the '40s, started a tip sheet called Jack the Rapper, battling the trend. "Black stations should not play any white records," Gibson told George. "Every time they do, they take airplay away from a black artist." He did name one exception, though. And that exception was 
'Tis the time for reflection and resolutions. Sometimes thinking about the past can give us big ideas about what we want in the future, and so it goes with the annual "best albums" lists that nearly every major music publication cranks out around the turn of the year. These lists can be great conversation starters, and can also be a great source of music discovery. We've compiled our own lists of 
Maybe it says something about 2010 that the year's most ubiquitous and demographic-defying song was a chirpy '70s soul retread entitled "F*ck You," or that Kanye West's "Power," the most ambitious pop single of the year, paraphrased a quote from Malcom X in an effort to deify hip-hop's reigning enfant terrible. It was that type of year, people, and the songs that we selected as our top 50 tracks are strange, funky, heartfelt and confrontational slices of magnificent pop music. Whether you agree or not, leave us a comment, and don't forget that you can listen to a playlist of all these tracks right 
Three decades into hip-hop's recorded lifespan, in this time of Auto-Tune and ringtone hooks and hashtag rhymes, R&B is a music addicted to newness — to not sounding "dated." So it's refreshing that, every now and then, an artist from soul music's distant past will still find his or her way onto R&B stations. Quite often, the catapulting factor seems to be a younger star who's always been a fan and who sets out to champion an inspirational legend's comeback, perhaps to pay off a debt for having been influenced in the first place. Below are a whole bunch of old-schoolers — singers born, say, in the mid-'50s or earlier (before 
The world of contemporary R&B is such a rich, wide-ranging landscape, a fact that's been driven home by the diversity of albums that have come out of (or at least been related to) that genre in the past couple of months: Shontelle's dancefloor-ready bangers and plaintive soul-pop, Seal's amorous adult contemporary, Lyfe Jennings' earnest, weathered crooning, Bruno Mars' limber tenor and dexterous pop stylings. It's a lot to keep up with, we know, so we've rounded up the hottest new releases, complete with nutshell reviews, don't-miss tracks and further listening suggestions. We'll get you caught up!
Nearly 12 years after its release, 
If Hurricane Katrina was one of the great tragedies of modern America, then New Orleans’ resurrection in its aftermath is one of our greatest triumphs. The road hasn’t been an easy one, but the Crescent City has returned to its rightful place as one of the cultural capitols of the world. It’s a place that is one of the key birthplaces of modern music and, on the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we pay tribute to the great city with a selection of the best it has to offer - past, present and future.
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Hip-hop and R&B share a history fraught with musical romance and cultural tension. Though there have been successful marriages — 
Very sad news: 
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