Like good old friends, they're always there, ever ready to power up and party, sounding as good the millionth time they stream from the speakers as they did the very first. They're the Urban Club Class …

Urban club classics come in all styles and sounds, so we've scouted the hot spots from coast to coast to be sure we've covered the beat-monster bases for your benefit. The result? Everything from the r …

When it came to R&B, the '70s saw a spike in social consciousness, the '90s an explosion of hip-hop crossover hitmaking, but the '80s? The '80s was a time for finding new voices, for stretching out and …

When you've got a decade as rich in great R&B as the '80s, it never hurts to have some help sorting the worthy from the wannabes. Welcome to Deep Cuts, where we dig deep into the vaults to bring you ev …

Though the term world music has been around for a mere 20 years (its official birth was June 29, 1987, over dinner at a London restaurant), the music itself has been part of our listening experi …

Pipa (Chinese lute) player Min Xiao-Fen, best known for her collaboration with Bj÷rk on Volta, transports us to a distant and ancient Eastern realm of lotus flowers and incense in "Sounds …

In the first decade of the 21st century, amid the wizardly exploits of Harry Potter and the Darwinism-gone-wild of Survivor, R&B brought a brand new batch of beats to the table while keeping the core v …

The R&B sounds of the new millennium shook, rattled, and roared like nothing ever before. Kelis served up her luscious, lip-smacking "Milkshake" over the bass-buzzing beats of the Neptunes, bringing th …

A quintessential merengue primer, this section introduces you to the genre's godfathers (Wilfrido Vargas, Johnny Ventura), its Puerto Rican stars (Olga Ta±=n, Elvis Crespo), the most popular orchestras …