Group representations and generators

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could someone elaborate on the following:

A matrix representation of a group $G$ is a homomorphism $R:G\rightarrow GL_n$.

If a group $G$ is given by

$$\langle x_1,\dots,x_n\mid r_1,\dots,r_k\rangle$$

generators and relations and we have matrices $R_{x_1},\dots ,R_{x_n}$ that satisfy the relations, Then we may obtain a matrix representation $R:G\rightarrow GL_n$.

May someone elaborate on why the map is a homomorphism please?