R&B music originated in the 1940s as a genre of African-American popular music combining blues records with rhythm and blues. By the 1950s, the term R&B was used to refer to styles that incorporated electric blues, gospel, and soul music. R&B continued to evolve, being used to describe soul and funk music in the 1970s and establishing contemporary R&B in the 1980s, which combined elements of rhythm and blues, soul, funk, pop, hip hop, and dance.