Let’s set the scene. You’re out with friends, or maybe by yourself, at a local nightclub or day party, and the DJ on set gives a shoutout to the “Carribeans” in the crowd. They say something like, “One time for my Carribeans” or “Where my Carribeans at?” and those in the audience who identify as such make some noise with the expectation that a song from their region will be played next. Instead, an afrobeats record from the likes of Wizkid, Davido, or Burna Boy blares from the speakers. Carribeans and Africans in the audience are left equally confused by the miscategorization and the DJ does a quick two- or three-song rotation before getting back to their regularly scheduled programming.
As ludicrous as it sounds, this scenario happens more often than you’d think. Look no further than comments in this Lipstick Alley forum from 2022 for proof. While regions heavily populated with Africans or Carribeans like southern New England, New York City, Philadelphia, or Houston probably haven’t had this experience to the extent of other areas, it is an issue. It’s just one example of the miscategorization of these genres that we’ve seen happen time and time again.
By the 2010s, Afrobeats and dancehall were undeniably popular in the global mainstream. Viral dances like those attached to Fuse ODG’s “Azonto” and Iyana’s “Kukere,” as well as success from Davido, Burna Boy, Wizkid, P-Sqaure, D’banj, and others played a big role in afrobeats’ rising popularity. In contrast, the success of Sean Paul, Popcaan, Vybz Kartel, Bounty Killer, Beenie Man, and others helped boost the appeal of dancehall. Though dancehall stands alone as its own unique sound, afrobeats is more of a culmination of various genres that include any mixture of house, hip-hop, dancehall, highlife, R&B, afrobeat (yes, without the s), and more.
Afrobeat is different from afrobeats as it pulls from traditional Nigerian music with additional influences from funk, jazz, and soul, and sees its origins go back to the 1960s, while the origin of dancehall is between the 1960s and 1970s. With afrobeats and afrobeat often getting confused and afrobeats containing numerous influences — including dancehall — it’s not all that surprising that the genres are mixed up, leading to DJs shouting out “Carribeans” and playing afrobeats. However, a history mix-up would be a generous explanation for all of this.
With afrobeats and dancehall making their presence felt in the mainstream world by the mid-2010s, artists in the respective genres continued a tradition of collaboration dating back to their origins. Some of the records we’ve received over the years include Kranium & Wizkid’s “Can’t Believe It,” Popcaan and Davido’s “Risky” and “Dun Rich,” Burna Boy’s “Toni-Ann Singh” with Popcaan, Byron Messia’s “Talibans II” with Burna Boy, Teejay’s “Drift (Remix)” with Davido, Vybz Kartel & Burna Boy’s “Personally (Remix),” and Wizkid’s “Slip N Slide” with Shenseea and Skillibeng. In these cases, the blend between afrobeats and dancehall can be effortless with each artist performing just as well in the other’s genre as they do their own. For those without knowledge of the artists and sounds within afrobeats and dancehall, this is where the distinction between the genres gets lost, and suddenly, you’re shouting out the Carribeans in the crowd, only to play a set full of afrobeats staples.
While some ignorance is understandable, fans’ and DJs’ reluctance to correct said ignorance is not. Both afrobeats and dancehall are becoming more and more globally popular and respected by the month. For example, a fall 2023 report from Spotify noted that afrobeats tallied more than 15 billion streams on the platform. In just the last few years, both genres have provided records that served as anthems for the year’s hottest months, including Burna Boy’s “Last Last,” Byron Messia’s “Talibans,” and Wizkid’s “Essence.”
These artists are Grammy nominees and winners. Artists in both genres collaborate with some of the biggest names in the industry. The genres’ successes aren’t a fluke, but the result of years of work from their pioneers and contemporary hitmakers to push the beautiful sounds of their culture to the masses. Afrobeats and dancehall deserve the respect and recognition to stand and be known on their own terms.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
In a recent interview about his new Netflix series, The Vince Staples Show, the Long Beach rapper gave a profound answer to what seemed on the surface to be a relatively straightforward question. “Every character is you,” he said. “I think that’s what gives us nuance.”
Now, he was responding to a question about how his show character — who is ostensibly a fictionalized version of himself — differs from the genuine article. But the thing is, his answer could be applied more broadly — not just to Vince Staples, or even to any actor/character combination, but to the very idea of representation itself.
We love TV because we see ourselves in the characters and situations onscreen. This is what gives those depictions their authenticity, what pulls us in, what engages us. This goes doubly for Black folks, who so rarely see ourselves and our lives onscreen that practically any representation can feel like a breath of fresh air.
Hip-hop, which marked its “official” 50th birthday last year, has had a profound effect on that representation. These days, Black audiences see themselves most clearly in boundary-pushing shows like The Vince Staples Show and Atlanta, but those shows are only the latest in a proud lineage of Black TV shows that wear their hip-hop influences on their sleeves.
Shows like The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air and Living Single proved our favorite musicians could transition to screen stardom, while shows like Empire and The Breaks followed the behind-the-scenes inner workings of the business of hip-hop music (with an engrossing helping of drama to help them along), as shows like The Rap Game and Rhythm + Flow offered a path to stardom for real-life aspirants. A few years ago, I wrote about the hip-hop sketch comedy shows that also gave the culture a greater platform.
From Fresh Prince to Vince Staples, here’s a look at how hip-hop has pushed the boundaries of Black TV.
Sitcoms
In many ways, hip-hop’s legacy of extending the boundaries of television started with sitcoms (there’s a reason the title of this piece marks those two shows as bookends). Will Smith, the titular Fresh Prince of Bel Air, was the first rapper with a regular role in a scripted TV series, let alone a starring one. While it was the existing stardom from his and DJ Jazzy Jeff’s first album Rock The House that got his foot in the door, it was his acting chops that proved he belonged in Hollywood — and helped open the door for future rappers turned sitcom stars like Queen Latifah (Living Single), LL Cool J (In The House), Eve (who had her own eponymous show in 2003), Kid Cudi (How To Make It In America), and even Method Man and Redman (Method & Red, which ran for one truncated season on Fox in 2004).
The groundwork these shows laid allowed for the newer, more experimental approaches of shows like Atlanta and The Vince Staples Show, which drew inspiration from more offbeat shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm, but paired them with hip-hop sensibilities. Atlanta, for instance, takes sharp detours in format and setting, sometimes opting for documentary-style episodes or standalone anthologies, which have been praised for moving not just Black TV but television as a whole forward.
Drama
The golden laurels for putting hip-hop on TV in a drama format almost certainly go to Empire, which took the dysfunctional family workings of classic soap operas like Dynasty and updated them to suit the trappings and lifestyle of a successful entertainment family, complete with a patriarch with a lengthy rap sheet. You can see shades of Succession, as well as star turns from both aspiring and established rappers. No doubt, the show’s success (including a slew of primetime Emmy Award nominations) opened the door for future network TV swings such as Queens. The theme of sisterhood from the latter carries over to Rap Sh!t, which chronicled the rags-to-riches story of a Miami rap duo inspired by City Girls.
Meanwhile, hip-hop’s fertile 50-year history offers a wealth of fascinating stories about its birth (The Get Down), development (The Breaks), and the biographies of some of his biggest stars (Wu-Tang: An American Saga). Meanwhile, rapper-turned-mogul 50 Cent has built an entire cinematic universe, Power, filling it with rappers like Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, Freddie Gibbs, and Joey Badass.
Competition
Naturally, with the popularity of musical competitions like American Idol and The Voice, similar competition shows would focus on hip-hop, as the odds of succeeding on other shows can be slim (The X Factor eliminated teen rapper Astro, who nevertheless went on to have a solid film and TV career himself, including initially being cast on Euphoria, although he later turned the role down). One of the first rap-focused shows was 2003’s The Next Episode, which was produced by Showtime and Interscope Records to take advantage of the fervor surrounding Eminem’s film debut 8 Mile.
And while that show’s results would prove less than satisfactory, future efforts have produced genuine stars. Jermaine Dupri’s The Rap Game, which aired on Lifetime from 2016-2019, is notable for launching the career of Latto, as well as featuring future standouts like Flau’Jae. Meanwhile, Netflix’s Rhythm+Flow saw the rise and breakout of D Smoke, who went on to receive a Grammy nomination for his debut album Black Habits. The show is set to return in 2024.
Reality
As much as reality shows are looked down on as “trash TV,” there’s no denying their popularity — or their ability to share details of our favorite entertainers’ lives. Growing Up Hip Hop chronicles the lives of second-generation hip-hop stars, while a whole bunch of stars, from Snoop Dogg to Rev Run, have their own shows about their respective family lives and the often wholesome bonds that maintain them throughout their hectic lives.
Of course, no hip-hop reality show is better known or more engrossing than Love & Hip-Hop, the long-running series chronicling the ins and outs of romance in the rap scenes of several major cities. While many come for the mess, the show is responsible — at least in part — for the rise of one of the most notable names in rap: Cardi B, who spent several seasons in the cast of Love & Hip Hop: New York, becoming a breakout fan favorite and giving her the launching platform for one of the most successful careers in rap for a woman ever.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Look up the term “genre” in regards to music, and you’re likely to land on a straightforward definition. Merriam-Webster refers to it as a category of artistic musical or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content — a description that leaves little to the imagination. When it comes to the reality of genre in the overall music landscape, however, the connotation is a bit more complicated.
Back when popular music first hit radio airwaves, “genre” quickly became more than just a simple characteristic of sound. Instead, it became a way to determine what listeners of certain frequencies might want to listen to, often based on which personal characteristics of the musicians programmers thought they’d relate to. That marketing of music placed artists into neat little boxes, some based on racist categorization of artists, with little thought to the style, form, or content of their music. One example of these musical microaggressions was Tina Turner’s 1966 song, “River Deep — Mountain High.” The seismic pop number was pushed out of radio play because — as her ex-partner and producer Ike Turner revealed in the HBO documentary Tina — it was “too white for Black jockeys and too Black for white jockeys.”
Unfortunately, five decades later, as seen in the 2024 Grammys ceremony, that problem reared its head again. This time. SZA, an artist whose sound falls into alternative, pop, and R&B categories depending on the track, scooped up multiple wins in the R&B category, snagging Best R&B Song for “Snooze” and Best R&B Album for SOS. The same juxtaposition of hip-hop-inspired lyrical delivery with melodic harmonies is present in another album track, “Ghost In The Machine” featuring indie genius Phoebe Bridgers, but that song was relocated to a “pop” category and picked up the Grammy Award Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. Does one alternative rock artist plus one R&B artist equal a pop duo? What was it about that song in comparison to every other song on SZA’s SOS that relegated it to pop?
The categorization confusion hasn’t been lost on SZA, who told Alternative Press last year that the lack of R&B sounds on her latest album initially confused fans. “I definitely felt like half of the people [were] like, ‘I wish this was R&B, and it’s not, and I hate it.’ And I was like, ‘Aww, I’m sorry, but also I don’t know…’ It is what it is,” she said, adding, “Sometimes you can’t fault people for putting you in a box if you don’t at least show them, and I definitely had to take responsibility for showing people who I was.”
She also told Consequence in 2022, that she was “so tired of being pegged as [an] R&B artist.” “I feel like that’s super disrespectful because people are just like, ‘Oh, ’cause you’re Black, this is what you have to be’ — like, put in a box. And I hate that,” she added. She went on to say that she found the label “lazy” and that although she loved making “Black music, period,” that didn’t mean that Black music unequivocally meant R&B. “We started rock ‘n’ roll,” she said. “Why can’t we just be expansive and not reductive?” SOS debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, proving that fans, even the ones who may have been surprised by her direction, could handle an album that traveled into gospel, grunge, pop-punk, and rap soundscapes fearlessly.
There’s an energy in the industry that does seem to be moving in diverse, expansive, and less reductive directions. Take, for instance, women sweeping most wins in major categories at the Grammys this year or Paramore becoming the first female-fronted band to win the award for Best Rock Album. There were also the predictions of SZA making history with SOS and hopes that she’d pick up the Best Album of The Year award, making her the first Black woman in 25 years to do so. All the signs were there: a record-breaking, 10-week No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 (marking the longest-running No. 1 album released by a woman in nearly seven years), 11 billion streams (and counting), and groundbreaking moments like her No. 1 hit “Kill Bill.” Fellow record-breaker Taylor Swift took home the ultimate win that night with her album Midnights, which also nabbed her the win for Best Pop Vocal Album. Despite Swift getting her start in country music, she’s had little issue shifting her category of genre, and with it, the associated radio stations and Grammy categorizations. Is this something allotted to all artists? What is it about SZA’s sound that doesn’t allow the same level of sonic shapeshifting?
Speaking of country and sonic shapeshifting, Beyoncé is currently ramping up to release an album filled with so much twang, so much aesthetically oversized cowboy paraphernalia, that it’s hard to keep a straight face while saying the album will be pop and not country. In fact, many fans, catching wind of the R&B, hip-hop, and definitely pop superstar being pushed off of country radio play called into stations, asking why the star’s two tracks “Texas Hold ‘Em’” and “16 Carriages” weren’t hitting the airwaves. When Oklahoma’s country music station KYKC decided not to play Beyoncé’s new songs, one fan who reached out received the response that the station wouldn’t be playing the track because “we are a country music station.” But when the Beyhive reached out to the station, they added it to the rotation. Now, both tracks are dominating the Hot Country Songs chart with “Texas Hold ‘Em” at No. 1 and “16 Carriages” at No. 9.
The idea of genre as an appropriate categorization of music is being challenged with each passing release week. Still, non-Black artists can move into new sonic territory with an ease not given to their Black counterparts. It’s an unfair limitation that impacts sales, accolades, and promotions, barring these artists from access to larger, more diverse audiences. It also denies those fans the opportunity to be exposed to groundbreaking artists.
So maybe the issue of genre categorization based on race could be solved by an outpouring of disgruntled fans like the Beyhive calling it out or an artist like SZA blatantly stating the obvious when it comes to the alternative leanings of their sound. Perhaps it’s something that can be dismantled as we shine a light on the issue itself, and demand better fitting alternatives.
Or maybe genre itself has become an archaic way of describing music, limiting multi-faceted artists who’ve already pushed past the limitations forced on them from marketing and categorization, because much like SZA recently said herself via X, “I’m complicated and aware it can be annoying. So grateful for those that take time to learn me love me and accept me.” Maybe we all just have more learning to do.
Without question, Jamaica’s greatest export is reggae music, as embodied by the genre icon Bob Marley. Even if you’ve never had the fortune to visit the Caribbean country, Marley’s influence can be felt around the globe. Regardless of the genre, the late musician’s groundbreaking discography is the undercurrent for some of the world’s biggest acts, including Burna Boy, Bruno Mars, Janelle Monáe, Nas, Stevie Wonder, and The Police.
In Paramount Pictures’ biopic Bob Marley: One Love, starring Kingsley Ben-Adir (as Bob Marley) and Lashana Lynch (as Rita Marley), audiences are reminded of Marley’s musical greatness. However, the overlooked takeaway from the film is the cultural significance of reggae music. Born out of multiple diasporic sounds (mainly ska, rocksteady, and calypso), its mento (folk) core is what curated the art form into a calling card specific to the people of Jamaica.
As was the case for hip-hop, reggae’s rise had everything to do with its alluring instrumentation as well as the profoundly political and social commentary heard throughout each record’s lyrics. Somewhere along the way, that rebel spirit has been lost (or at least on the mainstream front). So, how did the genre go from Bob Marley And The Wailers’ 1977 version of “One Love” to Drake’s “One Dance” in 2016? Similar to the music itself, the answer to this question is quite layered. The decentering of religious obligations, commodification of Jamaican culture, and leniency of gatekeepers have all contributed to the erasure of reggae music’s social & political commentary roots.
First, you must examine Marley, the man and musician, to dissect why he’s revered around the globe. The person behind those poetic pieces was a spiritually rich man far before his tangible wealth set in. In journalist Vivien Goldman’s 2006 The Book Of Exodus, she recounted one of her many conversations with Marley before his death, where he detailed his faith journey into Rastafarianism. Having a vision of Jah (God) in 1966 while living in America prompted him to return to Jamaica “with a clear vision” of his life’s purpose. Marley’s unwavering tether to his religious obligations led him to inherit the moral responsibilities of a messenger.
Reggae or, as he referred to it, “the king’s music” (quoted by Timothy White in his 1983 biography, Catch A Fire: The Life Of Bob Marley), each time Marley touched a microphone, his duties were to lead his people toward’s God favor pushing back against the wickedness in the world. With Dancehall being the dominant sound coming out of Jamaica presently, long gone are the days when reggae acts could break through for simply speaking truth to power. To borrow a line from the 1993 film Menace II Society, ‘Don’t nobody wanna hear that sh*t, Sharif.’ Well, unless you count Koffee (the youngest musician to win a Grammy in the reggae category). That’s not to say that rising stars Byron Messia, Jada Kingdom, or Dexta Daps don’t sprinkle spirituality into their music. It’s just not their primary focus. Nor does it pick up steam outside the country’s parishes in days past.
The commodification of Jamaican culture has played the most significant role in the erasure of reggae music’s social & political commentary roots. Globalization is a b*tch. As quickly as Marley’s music traveled, so did the industry’s urge to convert this newly found popularity into a steady income stream. From labels’ rush to extract reggae’s musicality (native instruments, production techniques, etc.) to companies’ mass production of “Rasta-inspired” tchotchkes, an influx of items hit the market to give those obsessed with the country’s superstars a piece of Jamaica on-demand.
We’re not talking just about the white tourist wearing tams with faux dreadlocks (zatavi) crocheted into them. Most certainly, it includes non-natives cosplaying cultural ambiguity. This ushers in the music industry question equivalent of whether Black folks can or can not be racist. So, can Black people appropriate other sectors of Black culture? When you boil it down to semantics, the answer is no. But are Black people (including bi-racial or multi-racial) often seen exploiting Caribbean cultures in stereotypical ways? The answer is, without a shadow of a doubt, yes. Is reggae music a monolith? No. But it’s okay to admit that we’re losing the plot.
Rihanna’s 2005 “If It’s Lovin’ That You Want” to 2009 “Rude Boy” pipeline isn’t precisely how reggae music was intended to evolve, but does that mean it should be stripped from the rolling credits? Drake’s “One Dance” is inspired by reggae music. This development is a game of telephone set to music where the subject matter drastically changes, and the instrumentation refuses to give in to eroding. What happens when the money means more than the message? I don’t know. Ask hip-hop.
Its gatekeepers were the last line of defense in reggae music to retain its social & political commentary roots. Unfortunately, their leniency inadvertently contributed to the genre’s now dull bite. When talking about music families, there’s no one above the Marleys in reggae. Starting with the paternal figures to the children and now grandchildren (hi, Skip), several generations of the Marley bloodline carry the torch both in the booth and label boardrooms. Other key players, including producers, songwriters, DJs, and more, continually fuel the genre’s progression on the ground in Jamaica.
Still, as far back as the 1990s, the barrier enforced based on socioeconomic upbringing nearly pushed Sean Paul out of music. In a 2022 documentary with Vice, Paul confessed that during the early days of his career, he desperately wanted to make “cultural records” that spoke to the economic and living conditions of Jamaica’s ghettos harkening to reggae’s foundation. However, producer Jeremy Harding (one of the most impactful music professionals in reggae) advised against it. “[Harding] was like, ‘You know nobody believes you. You know that, right? You’re not the person that will be able to ‘preach.’ So, why don’t you sing about who you are… sing about girls. Sing about parties.’”
Ultimately, Paul’s success doing so helped kick off Dancehall’s international resurgence in 2000 (so thanks for that). Still, now the public is left to fantasize about what artist Paul could’ve been if given the space to craft the art he originally intended. In the same video piece, Harding shed further insight into the divide in Jamaica on who can be the vocal authority in reggae.
“As I started to work with Sean, we realized that we shared a similar background — the way that we describe it, we were Uptown kids,” he said. “So, the friends and family that we had around us were looking at us strangely. Like, ‘Why do you want to get involved with Dancehall? Dancehall is nasty, dutty, ghetto music?’ And at the same time, you’re struggling against the other side of the community, saying, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t be here because you don’t have a place in this music’ and ‘You’re not from the ghetto; therefore, you are not authentic.’”
“Everyone was challenging [me], [saying] ‘You can’t express for us,’” added Paul.
Yet, that same protective energy disappeared when given the breakout moment to promote Bob Marley: One Love during the 2024 Grammys; Ziggy Marley laughed along as host Trevor Noah poked fun at the Jamaican accent and many of their easygoing personalities instead of focusing on the richness of the culture.
What good are gatekeepers if they aren’t keeping the culture when it matters the most? You tell me. Are Afrobeats and amapiano tastemakers taking heed?
Where do we go from here? Nowhere. As with hip-hop, the damage is already done. A complete gutting would have to take place to undo what has been done, which economic players likely won’t let happen. In short, Bob Marley: One Love is a painstaking reminder of what was and how the decentering of religious obligations, commodification of Jamaican culture, and leniency of gatekeepers have all contributed to the erasure of reggae music’s social & political commentary roots.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Twenty years ago, Usher’s fourth album Confessions assumed the crown of 2004’s best-selling album in the US thanks to nearly 8 million copies sold nationwide. It sold more than double the release that came in second place, Norah Jones’ Feels Like Home. In addition to the immense commercial acclaim it received in 2004, Confessions remained atop the conversation around modern-day R&B in the years that followed. It’s ever-present on “Best Albums Of All-Time” lists while continuing to be mentioned as a body of work that influenced some of today’s biggest artists. Two decades and a diamond certification later, Usher’s Confessions, among his other work, finds itself in the middle of an R&B resurgence.
For roughly 13 minutes, Usher danced and skated all over the Super Bowl LVIII stage as he cruised impressively through performances of “Caught Up,” “My Boo,” “Confessions Pt. II,” “Burn,” “Yeah!” and more. It marked the second Sunday in a row that R&B was under the spotlight in front of a national audience that extended globally. The Sunday before Super Bowl LVIII was the 66th Annual Grammy Awards where Victoria Monét, who was tied for the second-most nominations, walked away with the Best New Artist award in addition to wins in the Best R&B Album and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical categories. SZA, the most-nominated artist of the awards, secured three wins in Best Progressive R&B Album, Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, and Best R&B Song. Lastly, Coco Jones tasted victory during her first Grammy award show as a nominated as she walked away with a Best R&B Performance trophy. Together, the trio are undeniable representatives of artists ready to lead R&B into and through its next era – one that brings it back to mainstream glory.
The forecast for the future of R&B doesn’t begin with these award wins, as it’s been clear for a while now that the genre’s resurgence was in order. I’d even argue these awards aren’t the validation of an artist’s work, but rather, the celebration of what was already validated. A loss, or even the failure to get nominated, doesn’t nullify its quality or impact. Last fall, Spotify reported a 25% increase in streams of R&B records over the past year, making it one of the platforms’ fastest-growing genres. In recent years, the sound that many called dead progressed into one that could now take centerstage during both music’s and sport’s biggest nights. As a result, its artists have new hardware to place in their trophy cases, received a moment to celebrate and showcase the best of an already-cemented legacy, and found the inspiration to one day achieve the career-highlighting moments that were showcased during the first two weeks of this Black History Month.
When fans mentioned the “death” of R&B, it often pointed to the absence of pure vocalists and a lack of passion and yearning for love in the music. There’s been a shift in tone in R&B over the years since Usher’s Confessions, where some artists now prefer a middle finger and a goodbye over a good ol’ session of singing in the rain shirtless and begging for another chance from a scorned lover. Things were meant to change though as tradition is the repeated commemoration of the past and rarely does the past exist unaltered forever. An expiration date exists and awaits someone who dares to discover it and go against it in favor of starting their own. In the best cases, what once was is never forgotten, but instead, it’s used in the formula to create what’s next.
The best cases exist with Coco Jones’ “ICU,” SZA’s “Snooze,” and Victoria Monét’s “I’m The One” – songs that passionately call for love at each tick of the metronome and let the passion of their requests spill into their vocal runs. Look no further than H.E.R’s “Comfortable,” Lucky Daye’s “Over,” Chloe x Halle’s “Ungodly Hour,” Summer Walker’s “You Don’t Know Me,” Khamari’s “These Four Walls,” and Leon Thomas’ “Sneak” for additional examples from artists who made use of this ingredient. This helped to bring the best of modern-day R&B to the stage it deserved to be on.
The argument in defense of R&B’s state in the past was that the undeniable talent that fans and critics seek lay deep in the genre’s rolodex, overlooked by those who didn’t value the true beauty of the music. You simply had to sift through the mainstream clutter and do the work to find the artist(s) who represented the greatness of the genre. For fans who did this, their eventual discoveries became like precious gems to listeners who feared if and how their new beloved artist would later be comprised if they had too much light placed on them. In came posts expressing how “better” it was when said artist was below a certain popularity threshold. Sure, fans will still discover and hold these precious gems close to their hearts, but hopefully now thanks to the above examples, they’ll be a bit more willing to support and push them into glory knowing what it could bring to their career. Not to mention the bragging rights that exist with being there since day one.
In just two weeks, R&B put forth a convincing showcase of what tomorrow looks like in the genre, and the fact of the matter is people are listening. The yearning ears are back and the genre is providing music that satisfies all listeners alike in a room that is prepared to house a bigger audience than what was once had in recent years. Since Usher’s Confessions, few years have delivered an R&B album that dominated the charts as well as SZA’s SOS did. Then you have an album like Victoria Monét’s Jaguar II which left an impact on the culture that one would be silly to deny. Lastly, Usher received his flowers in an excellent performance of his career-spanning releases on the Super Bowl LVIII stage. It’s a vivid picture of a genre in great health, one that seems primed for might milestones in the coming years.
When it comes to diversity and inclusion in our everyday lives, we’re reminded both of how far we have come and how far we still have to go. While there have been immeasurable societal strides, particularly within the last few years, the work won’t end until all races, ethnicities, and genders feel seen, accepted, and included.
This fact is especially pertinent in the arts, as this portion of the culture largely serves as a microcosm for the world at large. Many of the artists we know and love had their share of struggles when it came to inclusion, yet their hard work and dedication to their craft paid off in historic spades.
As Black History Month commences, take a look at some of the iconic “firsts” in music history throughout genres. Black musicians helped to pave the way for artists all over to create magic of their own, and continue to do so decades — even centuries — later.
GENERAL
1890: George W. Johnson is the first Black person to record a best-selling phonograph record. His novelty vaudeville hit “The Whistling Coon” showcased his vocal abilities in more ways than one.
1955: Marian Anderson is the first Black singer to perform with the New York Metropolitan Opera.
BLUES
1920: Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues” is heralded as the first significant blues song ever recorded by a Black musician. It was entered into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1994 and was entered into the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry in 2005.
1969: Blues trumpeter WC Handy becomes the first Black musician to be featured on a U.S. postage stamp.
JAZZ
1925: Louis Armstrong records his Hot Five and Hot Seven combos, considered by many as the pieces of music that kicked off the jazz revolution.
1958: Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie become the first Black musicians to win a Grammy Award. Both artists took home two trophies.
1992: Thanks to her album Unforgettable… With Love, Natalie Cole becomes the first Black woman to win the Grammy Award for Album Of The Year. So far, there have only been two other Black women to take this award home: Whitney Houston and Lauryn Hill.
GOSPEL
2018: Due to her work on the SpongeBob SquarePants musical, Yolanda Adams is the first gospel artist to be nominated for a Tony Award. (Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre.)
COUNTRY
1971: Charley Pride is the first (and so far last) Black artist to win the Country Music Association’s most prestigious award, Entertainer Of The Year. In 2000, he became the first Black inductee at the Country Music Hall Of Fame. Harmonica player DeFord Bailey is the second (and only other) Black artist to be inducted into this prestigious academy.
2020: Mickey Guyton becomes the first Black female musician to be nominated for a country music Grammy Award in a solo performance category: Best Country Solo Performance for her song “Black Like Me.” (The Pointer Sisters won the award in 1974 for their writing work, not their music.)
ROCK
1977: Black Death — widely acknowledged as the first Black heavy metal band — is formed.
1986: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inaugural class is announced, and the first Black musicians inducted are Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, and Little Richard.
1987: Aretha Franklin is the first Black woman (and first woman) inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
1990: Thanks to their song “Cult of Personality,” Living Colour becomes the first Black band (and first musicians) to win the Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance. They would go on to win it again in 1991.
HOUSE
1984: “On & On,” Jesse Saunders’ single with Vince Lawrence, becomes the first record featuring a house DJ to ever be pressed and sold to the public.
1987: Steve Silk Hurley’s single “Jack Your Body” becomes the first house track to top the UK charts.
POP
1950: Nat King Cole becomes the first Black solo artist to have a No. 1 hit on the Billboard charts. His song “Mona Lisa” hit the top of the now-defunct “Best Sellers In Stores” chart.
1983: Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” is the first music video by a Black artist to play on MTV, which was heavily focused on rock in their earliest years. In 1991, MJ was also the first Black artist (and first artist) to have a song debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, thanks to his song “You Are Not Alone.”
1987: Whitney Houston becomes the first Black woman (and first woman) to have an album debut at No. 1, thanks to her eponymous album. In 1992, she also became the first Black artist (and first artist) to have an album sell a million copies in a single week with The Bodyguard soundtrack.
R&B
1972: Isaac Hayes becomes the first Black artist to win an Academy Award in a non-acting category. The “Theme From Shaft” won the Oscar for Best Original Song. He is also the first musician to have written and performed their own Oscar-winning song.
1974: Stevie Wonder is the first Black artist to win the Grammy Award for Album Of The Year for Innervisions.
HIP-HOP
1980: “Rapper’s Delight” by Sugarhill Gang becomes the first rap song to chart on Billboard’s Hot 100, peaking at No. 36.
1989: DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince win the first Grammy in the hip-hop genre. “Parents Just Don’t Understand” won for Best Rap Performance, but the duo famously boycotted the ceremony to protest the historic honor not being televised.
1990: Tone Loc becomes the first rapper to be nominated in the Best New Artist category.
1999- Lauryn Hill becomes the first hip-hop artist to win a Grammy for Album of the Year for her sole solo LP, The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill. She is still the only woman hip-hop artist to do so.
2006: Three 6 Mafia becomes the first hip hop group to win an Oscar for Best Original Song. (“It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp” from Hustle & Flow.) Per an interview with Variety, Juicy J recalled the win seeming “unreal.” (“We didn’t prepare no speech because we didn’t think we was gonna win,” he said.)
2018: Kendrick Lamar becomes the first rapper to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music, thanks to his album DAMN.
Each decade has its Black female pop music mainstay. In the 1970s, Donna Summer relished in international stardom with a husky voice and seductive image. Late powerhouse Whitney Houston took over the 1980s, possessing smoky and robust melodics that placed both her debut and sophomore albums atop the Billboard 200 upon release. Mariah Carey rightfully earned her ‘Songbird Supreme’ title in the 1990s for balladry and honeyed anthems that coated her five-octave range.
The aforementioned women – and tons more, including Janet Jackson, Beyoncé, and Rihanna – are Grammy-winning pop icons whose hits have defined generations. But as the musical landscape continues to appease the tastes of introspective-yet-lively Gen-Z listeners, standards for the quintessential Black female pop star have changed, and it’s reflected in the 2024 Grammy Awards nominations.
Three top contenders in this year’s ‘Big Four’ categories were once underdogs who had their eyes set on proving the mainstream wrong: SZA, Victoria Monét, and Coco Jones. Whilst SZA has one Grammy under her belt, split with Doja Cat for their 2021 collaboration “Kiss Me More,” Monét and Jones are meeting their breakthrough with seven and five respective introductory Grammy nominations. (Monét has previously been nominated as a writer, but not as the featured artist.)
The women were previously underappreciated as solo acts; SZA didn’t win a single trophy out of her five nominations for Ctrl, Monét was snubbed for her 2020 EP, Jaguar, and Jones was dropped from her first record deal as a teen. But where the emergence of the three is distinct, they all share a commonality: delivering vulnerability and rawness in their material rather than solely relying on a polished image and expert choreography.
Nabbing the most nominations (nine) at this year’s Grammys is SZA, who rose to the occasion in 2023 despite taking a five-year hiatus following her landmark 2017 debut Ctrl. Non-single standouts from SZA’s latest album are dominant in the categories of Best Traditional R&B Performance (“Love Language”), Best Melodic Rap Performance (“Low”), and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance (“Ghost In The Machine”), and in December, 16-time Grammy-winner Adele told THR that she believes SZA “will win all of them.” It’s fair to say that SOS is the singer-songwriter’s current magnum opus, as it succeeded Whitney Houston’s eponymous 1987 album in spending its first seven weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. It later sat ten non-consecutive weeks atop the chart, one of several historic feats that the LP would achieve in 2023. The “Snooze” vocalist also launched a massive headlining tour, her first arena outing since Top Dawg Entertainment’s ‘The Championship Tour’ in 2018.
Embarking on their first concert series last fall was Monét, who established herself as a household name during the Jaguar II rollout. Passing the torch to the Sacramento-raised artist on the album were past Grammy winners Lucky Daye (“Smoke”), Buju Banton (“Party Girls”), Kaytranada (“Alright”), and Earth, Wind And Fire (“Hollywood”). The latter even gave Monét’s 2-year-old daughter, Hazel, the recognition of becoming the youngest Grammy nominee in history for her bubbly cooing and laughter towards the song’s end. But it was Monét’s groundbreaking track “On My Mama” that gave the singer her first entry on the Billboard Hot 100 as a solo artist, also becoming anthemic for unapologetic mamas and HBCU marching bands. 2023 signaled Monét getting long overdue flowers from nearly every aspect of the music industry, including MTV – who was previously unaware of her greatness – to veteran R&B acts. Since 9-time Grammy-winner Mary J. Blige danced alongside her sister to “On My Mama” in a nightclub, Monét could be a headlining performer for the third installment of Blige’s Strength Of A Woman Festival & Summit.
Scoring big in 2022 and 2023 was Jones, who received watershed praise for her affectionate single “ICU” and its accompanying EP What I Didn’t Tell You. The project showed maturation in the Bel-Air star, whose origins stemmed from being a former Disney Channel notable. Although Jones initially shied away from ballads, the tracks on WIDTY were appropriate fits for the passionate and husky-voiced chanteuse. Despite Jones originally being hesitant about recording slower-paced music, her growth was acknowledged at last year’s BET Awards, NAACP Image Awards, and Soul Train Awards, where she won in all three Best New Artist categories, albeit over ten years apart from her self-titled EP.
However, the Grammys could surprise us by giving a long-delayed gramophone to Janelle Monáe, who stripped down and soaked up good vibes on their fourth album, The Age Of Pleasure. To date, the Kansas City-born visionary — who doesn’t solely identify as a woman and has come out as non-binary — has lost all eight of their previous Grammy nominations, including Album Of The Year for the radical third LP, Dirty Computer. Regardless of stepping away from a concept album run on TAOP, Monáe has proven their star power for nearly 15 years, also giving us an occasional show-stopping film performance.
African artists Ayra Starr and Tyla are primed to be the leaders of tomorrow’s pop music class, due to both being nominated in the new Grammy category Best African Music Performance. Whereas many in the U.S. are newly discovering Starr – who’s been a pillar in Afropop since 2021 – Tyla’s amapiano smash “Water” was unavoidable across block parties and TikTok last summer. The latter has frequently affirmed wanting to introduce her South African roots to the world as a pop artist, and since crossing over from local notoriety to reaching global stages, she’s on the right track.
We’d be remiss not to mention the projects from the unsung women in pop and R&B that either went unsubmitted or slept on by the Recording Academy. Kelela bared her soul and gave us ripened singing on her first album in over five years, Raven. Tinashe kept pushing the boundaries of experimental pop on her sixth overall album, BB/Ang3l. Amaarae’s diverse sophomore LP Fountain Baby was refreshing in a time when modern pop can sometimes be monotonous and gimmicky. More names that deserve a shot in the Grammys spotlight: Ama Lou, Jorja Smith, Liv.e, Chlöe, and Arlo Parks. As the public readies themselves for a post-Beyoncé and post-Rihanna pop climate – although both are undisputed in their own right – the next female Black pop star standard could be anyone’s to gain because these women have already made their mark.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Last year for Black History Month, I marathoned as many 1970s Blaxploitation classics, deep cuts, and spoofs as I could stomach. This year, though, there’s only one movie I want to recommend. A few days before writing this, I rewatched the 1999 Jim Jarmusch indie cult classic, Ghost Dog: Way Of The Samurai, for the first time in something like 10 years. I yammered about it so much that my girlfriend told me to pitch my editor just to shut me up.
Here’s why this quirky mishmash of hood, mafia, and samurai movie tropes electrified my brain: Despite coming out 25 years ago and completely bewildering contemporary audiences, Ghost Dog perfectly captured the hip-hop zeitgeist of the 2020s, predicting the rise of the dominance of Black geekdom over pop culture. At the same time, it offered a singular snapshot of its moment in time and nodded to a long legacy of Black weirdoes who refused to follow any code but their own.
The film revolves around the eponymous Ghost Dog, an iconoclastic mafia hitman played by Forest Whitaker. Ghost Dog is inspired by the samurai code of honor, as represented by a copy of Hagakure, a collection of commentaries recorded by Yamamoto Tsunetomo in the early 18th century, which Ghost Dog always carries around with him and regularly recites from throughout the film. He also practices swordsmanship on a rooftop and communicates primarily by carrier pigeon. Early reviews pondered the character’s potential mental illness; I choose to think that these critics were simply unfamiliar with the concept of the Black nerd.
Ghost Dog has declared himself the “retainer” for Louie, a low-level wiseguy who he believes saved his life. After a hit goes wrong, Louie’s gang is ordered to kill Ghost Dog, prompting the assassin to fight back – but not for the reasons you might think. The film is by turns chaotically violent, quietly philosophical, and darkly hilarious, and you might be as surprised by some of its moments of tenderness as thrilled by its innovative brutality. There are subtle literary allusions, powerful thematic resonances, and a hell of a head-nodding soundtrack.
The latter first drew me to Ghost Dog the year after it came out in just a handful of theaters. I’d read online that the soundtrack was produced by RZA of Wu-Tang Clan, and being in the middle of my hardcore backpacker era, I was immediately sold once I learned its premise. In 2000, I was also knee-deep into that phase so many of us go through when we are obsessed with Japanese culture and media – especially anime.
Unfortunately, around this time, the concept of “anime” in the US was a little hazier than it is now. Just reading the term here, you probably immediately thought of examples like Attack On Titan, Full Metal Alchemist, or My Hero Academia. Back then, it’d have only drawn blank stares from the overwhelming majority of the general population.
To view “Japanimation,” as it was cringingly called back then, you had to “know a guy” who could get you “fansubs” – VHS tapes hand-edited to add English subtitles. These were translated by hobbyists and transmitted in a legally dubious process of distribution to specialty shops in heavily Asian neighborhoods (the nearest one for me was in a deeply racist part of Orange County, meaning I literally risked my life at times to get my anime fix, while today, it’s as easy as logging into Netflix).
To make matters worse, there were few, if any, other “otaku” (the Japanese word for geek, used by Americans for anime fans) in my circle of acquaintances, coming from Compton and going to school in Long Beach. Today, we call them “weebs” and they basically run pop culture. Rappers shoot anime-style music videos and regularly reference terms like “Super Saiyan.” Megan Thee Stallion is presenting at Crunchyroll’s Anime Awards in Japan this year. Lil Uzi Vert is basically an anime character in real life.
Basically, being really into Japanese pop culture meant that you basically were Ghost Dog, in a way. Throughout the movie, multiple characters note how unusual he is for adhering to a way of life that had long been extinct and seemed to be at odds with his existence in a blue-collar neighborhood in New Jersey interacting with Crips, Bloods, and undocumented Haitian ice cream truck drivers. In a touch of irony, even his guidebook, Hagakure, was written at a time when samurai were by and large going out of fashion in a modernizing Japan. I may or may not have had my own copy, inspired by the film.
Yet there had always been people like this, who used nostalgia for bygone eras and intense passion for far-away cultures to fortify themselves for life spent in lower-class America. Take RZA, who makes a cameo appearance in the film in addition to producing its soundtrack (an underrated gem from his catalog, by the way). His love for kung-fu movies and Zen philosophy not only inspired him and protected him from the worst of what the hood can do to a young Black person but it also formed the foundation of his future prosperity with Wu-Tang.
Likewise, if you ask any of today’s young Black geeks, they’ll tell you how they relate to the medium’s many tales of overcoming adversity through self-belief and constant improvement. The cyclical nature of some of the medium’s most popular properties like Jujustu Kaisen, Demon Slayer, or Bleach resonates with them as they face the challenges of similar cycles of inner-city violence, personal prejudice, or systemic injustice.
Today, a Ghost Dog could walk past you at the subway station or the grocery store, and you might not bat an eye. At most, you’d shrug, but even if you didn’t understand, you’d get it. That’s what makes them happy. That’s how they get through the day. That’s what keeps them going. Cosplay (dressing up as your favorite character for conventions, exhibitions, and photoshoots) is nearly as commonplace as wearing a jersey to a ballgame (which, when you think about it, is basically just sports nerd cosplay).
Ghost Dog’s respectful interactions with the gangbangers in the film offer of microcosm of this perspective – and a reflection of how it really felt back then, being surrounded by guys up to their necks in turf wars who simply acknowledged my weird hobby and left me alone. Wearing blue or red could be dangerous where I’m from, but a Dragon Ball Z T-shirt was like a neutral flag. They didn’t get it, but they got it.
Even in 2000, the winds were shifting. By the end of the decade, a lot of those same guys were asking me for spoilers for the next episode of Dragon Ball. And by the 2010s, hip-hop had been infiltrated on a national level by artists who wholeheartedly embraced anime and manga (the comic book counterpart of anime) on their album covers and in their lyrics.
Lupe Fiasco won a Grammy in 2008 for “Daydreamin’,” a song in which he imagines his project building as a mecha, or giant robot (and has for the past few years, run around practicing with a literal samurai sword on his social media). Then, Nicki Minaj began calling herself the Harajuku Barbie and rocking pink wigs and anime-inspired fashions. Now, Denzel Curry, Juice WRLD, and Lil Uzi Vert all have songs titled “Super Saiyan” and Ski Mask The Slump God name-drops Naruto in his song “Catch Me Outside.”
Watching GhostDog again, it was clear how it fits into the slow build from then to now. In the film, Ghost Dog bequeaths his knowledge in the form of his treasured book to another young outsider, his neighbor Pearline. In much the same way, the film itself feels like it’s passed down its appreciation of outsiders to the next generation. Critics at the time seemed baffled; in my research, I’ve come across dozens of audience reactions that suggest many who watched it felt the same. It may not have been a massive hit (although it surprisingly made triple its budget at the global box office and has since been included in the Criterion Collection), but those who needed it undoubtedly found it and found themselves validated by it.
The film affirmed Black nerds of the time both by acknowledging that they existed and by confirming that Black nerds always had. In doing so, it’s not a far cry to believe that it made it okay for them (okay, fine, us) to keep going, to keep being weird, to keep marching to the beat of a drum no one else could hear. It certainly helped make it clear that this demographic existed; there are now anime featuring Black characters created by Black people such as proto-anime The Boondocks, and Yasuke, which was co-written by Flying Lotus and is about, yes, a Black samurai. Ghost Dog’s path may have been a solitary one, but he also blazed a trail, and now, legions are following in his footsteps.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
As a music writer, the annual ceremony is mandatory viewing. However, as a Black woman obsessed with Black creative expression, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to overlook its flaws (covert microaggressions, racially charged snubs, and seemingly willful exclusion). Given the Grammys’ checkered past, I shouldn’t have any expectations of the event. But I just can’t abandon hope for the ceremony. Its latest categoric expansion seems to suggest that I’m not delusional for believing that the landscape of the Grammys can change for the better.
Similarly, for most musicians, divestment isn’t an easy fix either. Given the financial opportunities tethered to earning a coveted gramophone, acts are committed to the advancement of the Grammys. In the meantime, what’s the alternative? Platforming, advocating for, and investing in Black-centered ceremonies — because, yes, Black music awards shows still matter.
If not for the continued communal conversation and unapologetic displays of Black joy — such as Sexyy Red’s impromptu performance at the 2023 BET Awards — Black awards shows are also crucial for their historical preservation of Black art. Due to the erasure of Black musicians’ impact and the shrinking media sphere, archiving Black artists’ works has become more important than ever.
BET, Soul Train, and even the Source Awards (because, as André 3000 so eloquently put it: “Da Souf got sum to say”) all have carried the torch of cultural documentation when others, such as the AMAs, Grammys, and VMAs — didn’t deem it vital — or profitable. Here, we take a look at some of the award shows decided for Black entertainment in need of the public’s support.
BET Awards
The BET Awards remain the creme de la creme of Black award shows. Spanning the decades, the BET Network has introduced a variety of ceremonies to honor Black art: the namesake show, the hip-hop-centered ceremony, the BET Walk Of Fame show, the Gospel Awards, and more. Over the years, the BET Awards have served as the place for legacy acts to receive their flowers and, in turn, pass the baton to the next generation — i.e., the 2003 ceremony when Michael Jackson paid homage to James Brown.
Before Beyoncé was the global music icon she has become, the BET Awards called it first (via Mo’Nique). As other programming executives ignored the impact of Luther Vandross, the BET Awards dedicated an entire evening to the late singer. When other ceremonies failed to properly pay tribute to fallen stars, the BET Awards were there — i.e., the 2020 Prince tribute. The BET Awards also give living legends space to honor themselves, such as New Edition’s 2017 or Mary J. Blige’s 2019 Lifetime Achievement performances.
Though they aren’t perfect — no award show is — the BET Awards and all of their installments offer a constant cycle of appreciation.
Black Music Honors
Just as the title of the ceremony suggests, Black Music Honors is unapologetically Black. Firstly, instead of being held in bigger media markets like Los Angeles or New York City, Black Music Honors is hosted in Atlanta, Georgia.
From there, Black Music Honors focuses its attention on the overlooked medium entertainment demographic. The most common criticism for other shows is they tend to sway too hard in one direction (staid classics or unknown newbies) which is why viewership tends to fluctuate. With Freddie Jackson, SWV, Xscape, and Tamia as past honorees, Black Music Honors confirms Generation X and Xennials are viable audiences.
Lastly, the award show is broadcast by the historic networks: Stellar Network and the Martin Luther King III-co-founded Bounce TV, both Black-owned and Black-targeted commercial entertainment networks.
Black Girls Rock!
As one of the newer award ceremonies here on this list, Black Girls Rock! is the embodiment of what it means to focus on intersectional identities. Before the COVID pandemic put an end to its annual ceremony, the show took pride in highlighting Black women’s contributions to the arts, which often go unacknowledged.
Black Girls Rock! gained mainstream attention after former First Lady Michelle Obama attended the show in 2015. Outside of the ceremony’s focus, organizers don’t forget the less publicized details. For several years, the show was hosted in Newark, New Jersey, a majority Black city on a street named after a Black pioneer, Sarah Vaughan.
Given the city’s rich Black music history, it is the perfect place to honor Black musicians. Since its last show in 2019, a new ceremony has not yet been announced. But even in its short tenure, it created a huge ripple in television programming standards.
McDonald’s 365 Black Awards
Let’s be frank: organizing an award show isn’t a cheap undertaking. That’s why corporate sponsorship for events is so important. Believe it or not, McDonald’s is a key financial contributor to Black music programming. When the fast food chain isn’t collaborating with music’s biggest names, such as Cardi B, Saweetie, or Travis Scott, for specialty menus, it is using its ample resources for music-focused events.
The McDonald’s 365 Black Awards was one of the earliest showings of the corporate giant putting its money where the mouth is in terms of equitable opportunities for entertainers of color. Although the ceremony no longer takes place, McDonald’s hasn’t abandoned Black music events; each year, McDonald’s puts on its annual Gospel Fest.
NAACP Image Awards
The NAACP Image Awards is the epitome of “honoring your own.” Given the civil rights causes platformed by its presenter, the Image Awards’ focus is on acts that have injected their activism work with their entertainment career.
Sadly, the support for the show has continued to dwindle, but during its heyday, music stars like Dionne Warwick drew in massive audiences. Yes, before she was the melodic voice sampled in Doja Cat’s “Paint The Town Red,” Warwick was one of the very first Black pop stars. During the 1988 ceremony, the late Luther Vandross showcased just how influential Warwick’s music has been with a performance of her charitable single “That’s What Friends Are For.” The single highlighted how she’s served as an ally to the LGBTQ community, raising millions for AIDS research with Elton John, Stevie Wonder, and Gladys Knight.
Soul Train Awards
The Soul Train Awards has been a staple in Black households for generations. Since its inception as a variety show, Soul Train has kept its finger on the pulse of Black culture. As fresh faces such as Uproxx cover star Chlöe, Coco Jones, and Fridayy burst onto the scene, the Soul Train Awards are there to welcome them into the fraternity of Black musical excellence.
Each year, the ceremony curates a polished tribute to honor acts of the present (T-Pain) and past (Babyface). One of the Soul Train’s standout tributes came in 2010 when Chrisette Michele, Kem, Tamia, El DeBarge, Dionne Farris, Lalah Hathaway, Rachelle Ferrell, Goapele, and Faith Evans honored Anita Baker.
Stellar Awards
It isn’t a coincidence that many of music’s powerhouse vocalists got their start in religious houses of worship. Gospel is the foundation of several other genres, but most notably R&B. As the first and longest-running ceremony for gospel music, The Stellar Awards continuously amplifies how deeply gospel’s roots run.
Other award shows try to spotlight gospel acts, but more often than not, those performances or acceptance speeches are not televised. But when they are, it is magical (i.e., Chance The Rapper, Kirk Franklin, and Tamela Mann’s medley set at the 2017 Grammys).
Other genres pioneered by Black musicians, such as jazz, dance, country, and rock, have whitewashed their history books. Due to the Stellar Awards’ due diligence, the same can not be said of gospel music.
Trumpet Awards
Before Timbaland and Swizz Beatz had the multi-million dollar idea for artists to put their catalogs on display for a walk down memory lane, there was the Trumpet Awards. While Verzuz was intended to ignite a competitive spirit, the Trumpet Awards’ mission was to be commemorative.
Founded by civil rights leader and pioneering broadcasting executive Xernona Clayton, the televised event was a time capsule for acts whose legacies tend to be overlooked. The unapologetic admiration displayed by Steve Harvey during the Verzuz showdown between The Isley Brothers and Earth, Wind, and Fire form the essence of a Trumpet Awards ceremony. The Trumpet Awards made sure that the influence of groups such as The O’Jays, The Whispers, The Temptations, The Four Tops, and more was not forgotten.
UNCF Benefit
Although the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) benefit isn’t exactly an award show, it surely veers that way. As it baits viewers in with culture-shifting music performances, the UNCF benefit does what others often conveniently forget to do — hold entertainers socially accountable. Before Cardi B was ranting about public funding crises on Instagram or flexing her love for world history, UNCF demanded that celebrities use their platforms to shine a light on important topics like education. Just look at Megan Thee Stallion’s outreach work as a case study. The Texas Southern University graduate didn’t let her booming rap career derail her pursuit of higher education.
The only path to success for Black children should not be tethered to their ability to sing or dribble a ball. By way of the UNCF benefit, public figures lent their voices to show that pursuing a career in the medical field, sciences, or humanities is just as important. One of UNCF’s most beloved performances was The Color Purple star Fantasia’s tribute to Patti LaBelle in 2009.
VH1 Hip Hop Honors
Long before Hip-Hop 50 programming was on the minds of any television producer, VH1’s Hip Hop Honors was one of the first series to carve out a primetime slot to celebrate rap’s titans. Across the event’s thirteen-year run, it proved to be at the forefront of flower giving, paying homage to Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductee Missy Elliott, Kennedy Center honoree Queen Latifah, and the original “Queen Bee” Lil Kim long before other larger established ever batted an eye.
Given the cycle in which new rappers rise and fall from fame, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for acts to cement their legacy. Contrarily, hip-hop’s issue with ageism favors newbies’ dismissal of their predecessors. The VH1 Hip Hop Honors put an end to that. For a few hours each year, you’d be taken to school. Rookies were forced to learn where their flows, samples, and fashion sensibilities derived from. Now that Hip-Hop 50 has passed, it’d be a shame if the culture stopped honoring its pioneers.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
