[4] Melvin Lindsey, a student at Howard University, with his classmate Jack Shuler, began as disc jockeys for WHUR in June 1976, performing as stand-ins for an absentee employee.
"The Quiet Storm" was four hours of melodically soulful music that provided an intimate, laid-back mood for late-night listening, and that was the key to its tremendous appeal among adult audiences.
[7][8] Following in the footsteps of KBLX, Lawrence Tanter of KUTE in Greater Los Angeles changed his station to an all-day quiet storm format from January 1984 until September 1987, playing "a hybrid that incorporates pop, jazz, fusion, international, and urban music".
WHUR operator Howard University has registered "Quiet Storm" as a trademark for "entertainment services, namely, a continuing series of radio programs featuring music".
Quiet storm songs were in most cases devoid of any significant political commentary and maintained a strict aesthetic and narrative distance from issues relating to black urban life.
[15] Music journalist Jason King wrote, "Sensuous and pensive, quiet storm is seductive R&B, marked by jazz flourishes, 'smooth grooves,' and tasteful lyrics about intimate subjects.
"[4] Ben Fong-Torres of Rolling Stone called quiet storm a "blend of pop, jazz fusion, and R&B ballads—all elegant and easy-flowing, like a flute of Veuve Clicquot champagne.
Music journalist Eric Harvey said that within the quiet storm genre, artists such as Luther Vandross were able to push the boundaries of gender normativity in both their sound and lyricism.
[15] Author Jason King said that through the genre and his music more generally, "Vandross toys with dominant conventions of male sexuality without engaging in androgyny or any explicit forms of traditionally feminine embodiment.
[15][18][19][20] Harvey went on to say: "This is one of the most important and overlooked aspects of the Quiet Storm format, and something that Vandross did so well: embrace a male form of domestic sensuality, a musical ideal previously exclusive to women.