Urban contemporary music, also known as urban music, hip hop, urban pop, or just simply urban, is a music radio format. The term was coined by New York radio DJ Frankie Crocker in the early to mid-1970s as a synonym for Black music. Urban contemporary radio stations feature a playlist made up entirely of Black genres such as R&B, pop-rap, quiet storm, urban adult contemporary, hip hop, Latin music such as Latin pop, Chicano R&B and Chicano rap, and Caribbean music such as reggae and soca. Urban contemporary was developed through the characteristics of genres such as R&B and soul.

Because urban music is a largely US phenomenon, virtually all urban contemporary formatted radio stations in the United States are located in cities that have sizeable African-American populations, such as New York City, Washington, D.C., Detroit, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Montgomery, Memphis, St. Louis, Newark, Charleston, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Dallas, Houston, Oakland, Los Angeles, Trenton, Columbia, Jacksonville, Flint, Baltimore, Boston, Birmingham, Indianapolis, Charlotte, Savannah, Hartford and Jackson.

Urban contemporary music includes the more contemporary elements of R&B and may incorporate production elements found in urban Euro-pop, urban rock, and urban alternative.