Black Excellence; Achieving The Impossible

Black Excellence; Achieving The Impossible

African Americans have made a huge impact on the fame scene. While before they weren’t properly credited for their contributions, they are finally getting the recognition that they deserve for years of amazing work and dedication to their craft. It took centuries for Bllack people to get credit for their work 

But there have been limitations to how far they can go. Being restricted to categories like Rap, Urban, and R&B. 

SZA’s album ‘SOS’ has reached over 9.8 Billion streams on Spotify in its second year of release. This is the first album by a Black woman to achieve a milestone like this. In the 2023 Grammy’s ‘SOS’ won “Best Progressive R&B Album”. SZA had something to say about this in an interview she had with Dazed

“The only reason I’m defined as an R&B artist is because I’m Black. It’s almost a little reductive because it doesn’t allow space to be anything else or try anything else.”

SZA isn’t the only artist to talk about segregation in the music scene. 

Tyler The Creator at the 2020 Grammy’s talked about how he hated that Black Music is put in its category away from everyone else’s. “Guys that look like me do anything that’s Genre-Bending or that’s anything they always put it in the rap or urban category. And I don’t like that Urban word, it’s just a politically correct way to say the N-word to me” The fact that more than one artist has spoken up about their dislike of this topic should be a sign that the music industry should have been a change by now. While we have developed as a society that now people of color are getting more opportunities, does it matter if they will forever chained to the same three categories? Will Black people never be expected to go past their “designated” sections? These questions are now being raised after the Grammy’s picked their Artist Of The Year.

This year Taylor Swift won Artist Of The Year over artists who released revolutionary albums and songs this year that went beyond expectations. Artists like Tyler, The Creator with “Chromakopia”, Kendrick Lamar with his songs against Drake and his new Album “GNX”, and New upcoming artist Doechii with her album “Alligator Bites Never Heal”. People believe that there were better nominees for the title of Artists of the Year and for other categories too.

But where there is oppression there is resistance and every year we find a new way to overcome the status quo and go further than the limitations that are set.

Megan Thee Stallion is making a new era of music, all of 2024 she has traveled to places in Asia to collaborate with popular and not-so-popular artists. Releasing her song “Mamushi” with Japanese rapper Yuki Chiba and recently “Strategy” with K-POP group TWICE. Usually, music collabs are kept with one’s race just for the sake of comfort and familiarity, but in recent years this way of thinking is being abandoned and it is opening the gate for a new normal.

Beyonce released “Cowboy Carter” a country studio album March 29th, 2024 and it was met with mixed reactions. A lot of fans and other black country artists loved it while white country artists argued on if it could be considered country music. This created a week-long fight where they tried to get Cowboy Carter removed from the country music charts, which failed because the album stayed #1 on the country charts for 28 weeks. But despite that this opened a gateway for other artists, causing a boost of 75% for black country music on Spotify.

With every year, media and art advances for Black people as they surpass expectations and limits and continue to make so many amazing contributions to their craft. We acknowledge how far they have come to get to this point and pay tribute to past artists for being the stepping stones for what they have.