Pop R&B
Pop R&B is music that blends R&B singing and grooves with the hooks, structure and glossy production of mainstream pop.
Songs are tuneful and radio-ready: big choruses, programmed beats, layered harmonies and vocals with R&B runs, at dance or ballad tempos. The blend has been a chart staple since the 1980s and 1990s, when R&B singers crossed over to pop radio in large numbers. It is a descriptive heading, not a scene, and the line between it and contemporary R&B or dance pop is a matter of degree: pop R&B puts the hook first.
Artists it is known for: Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, Usher, Rihanna.
- Family
- R&B & Soul
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A broad heading
- From
- United States, 1980s
- Also called
- r&b pop
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 2%
About 1,900 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have pop r&b among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Pop R&B artists
Khalid
Jacquees
Keyshia Cole
August Alsina
Coco Jones
Vedo
DeJ Loaf
Jazmine Sullivan
Muni Long
Luh KelThe pop r&b artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.