SZA

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.