25 Black Artists Who Helped Shape Modern Music

Black Music Month is an annual cause for celebration, with our rich contributions to all genres living on for generations. But just as much as it's a time to honor legends of yesteryear like Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin and Chuck Berry, there's just as much opportunity to recognize artists from recent eras as well. Black artists have never stopped innovating: the current landscape of music draws inspiration from the ’80s through the 2010s alike, and as always, Black artists are the ones setting the rules. So to honor Black Music Month this year, we've put together a list of 25 artists who have helped shape the sound of modern music and culture.

We know the drill — lists are inherently going to make people angry anyway, so that’s unavoidable. But let’s be clear about what this list is not. This isn’t just a Greatest of All Time ranking; it’s a list of artists who have helped shape the sound of modern music and culture. Recency bias isn’t something we’re avoiding here. That's the entire point. Impact and influence on what we’re hearing now take priority over long-term achievement and personal enjoyment.

For the sake of this piece, it’s important to note that pioneers and leaders aren’t always the same thing. In other words, being the first — or among the first — doesn’t necessarily mean you’re the person who modern musicians reference, emulate or look up to. Influence can take many different forms, and we’re naming artists who have left their fingerprints all over today’s musical landscape.

And, of course, this isn't a definitive list. We understand that there are dozens of other brilliant and influential artists that we've left out. These 25 names aren’t a slight against anyone who doesn't appear here. With that said, check ours below and let us know what you think.

J Dilla

If you're a reader of Okayplayer, you're already familiar with the music of the late, great J Dilla. Through his work with Slum Village, his solo catalog and collaborations with artists like Common, Erykah Badu and De La Soul, he revolutionized hip-hop and R&B in the 2000s and beyond. His approach to flipping soul and jazz samples, paired with programmed drums that carried the slight imperfections of live musicians, helped create a sound that remains influential today.

Dilla's impact can still be heard through both direct collaborators and the artists who followed in his footsteps. R&B duo GENA's acclaimed LP, The Pleasure Is Yours, was produced by friend and longtime collaborator Karriem Riggins, while Madlib — the producer behind multiple Freddie Gibbs projects — shared a mutually inspirational relationship with Dilla. Knxwledge, known for his work with Kendrick Lamar and as one half of NxWorries, alongside Anderson .Paak, has also drawn frequent comparisons. And, of course, every "lo-fi hip-hop" playlist you've come across owes Dilla streaming royalties. — William Ketchum

Darius Rucker

Before Darius Rucker, Black superstardom in country music largely began and ended with Charley Pride, a former 1950s Negro Leagues baseball player who would create hit records in the ’60s and ’70s. But as the lead vocalist and co-writer for Hootie & The Blowfish, Rucker landed six Top 40 hits on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart throughout the ’90s. By proving a second time that Black artists could be stars in a genre that doesn't properly acknowledge Black artistry, Rucker serves as a bridge between Pride’s barrier-breaking and the success of newer stars like Mickey Guyton, Shaboozey, Kane Brown, Tanner Adell and Lil Nas X. — W.K.

Robert Glasper

When I first interviewed Robert Glasper 10 years ago and asked him whether Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly would prompt more interest in jazz music, he gave one condition: “(only) if people capitalize on it and do cool sh*t.” The award-winning pianist and composer has certainly held up his end of the bargain on To Pimp A Butterfly and much more. His Black Radio album series has featured guest appearances by stars like Anthony Hamilton, Brandy, Lalah Hathaway and Lupe Fiasco. He formed a supergroup called Dinner Party with Terrace Martin, Kamasi Washington and 9th Wonder, and his annual star-studded residency at Blue Note is one of the hottest tickets in New York City. He nabbed his 16th Grammy nomination this year, five of which have resulted in awards. He's also worked with the likes of The Kid LAROI, Banks, Anderson .Paak and others. Simply put, lots of artists are leaning into jazz these days — and Glasper is never more than one degree away from what's being made, whether it’s in the studio or on the road. — W.K.

MF DOOM

MF DOOM is one of the most distinctive rappers of all time, using his gruff, instantly recognizable voice to deliver rhymes that were syllabically intricate without sacrificing personality or theatricality. Albums like his solo debut, Operation: Doomsday, and his landmark Madlib collaboration, Madvillainy, have left generations of artists in his wake: indie rap icons like Earl Sweatshirt, Danny Brown, Pink Siifu and others have all openly discussed how they were impacted by his unconventional style and his imaginative character-building. That's on top of the huge impact from his enigmatic masked persona that hid his face from the public, an approach used in various ways by stars like H.E.R. and The Weeknd. — W.K.

Missy Elliott

Even when she first blew up in the ’90s, Missy Elliott was ahead of her time: she dropped bugged-out music videos, her co-production with Timbaland paired buzzy synths with miscellaneous sound effects, and she flaunted lyrical and melodic versatility that effortlessly swayed from lewd and swaggy to vulnerable and affectionate. So it only makes sense that her brilliance would continue to resonate. Artists like Cardi B, BIA, Flo Milli and Isiah Rashad have sampled Missy in recent years, while Tyler, the Creator, Tierra Whack and Doechii have all directly cited her as an influence on their work. — W.K.

Brandy

Brandy’s beloved nickname as “The Vocal Bible” isn’t just praise of her talent. She was one of the premier songbirds of the ’90s, launching her career as a teenager with “I Wanna Be Down” in 1994 before taking her music into adulthood and becoming one of the greatest R&B/pop artists ever. But she’s acquired that nickname because of the way her runs, layers and harmonies innovated in their time and influenced singers for generations after. Just about every R&B/pop singer worth their salt has cited Brandy as an influence, and for great reason: Erykah Badu, Tyrese, Tank, Beyoncé, Jazmine Sullivan and many more. And as the ’90s R&B aesthetic begins to pick up steam again now, her impact is larger than ever. As eloquently stated by Kehlani: “we’ll never call her a peer. We’ll always call her a mother.” — W.K.

Drake

Drake’s popularity may be just as pronounced as his divisiveness these days, but his impact is undeniable. While he wasn't the first artist to blur the line between singing and rapping, projects like So Far Gone and Take Care helped make that hybrid approach the dominant language of modern rap. He also ushered in an era where emotional vulnerability could exist alongside bravado, creating space for artists to be introspective without sacrificing commercial appeal. Between those elements, his prolific output as both a solo artist and featured guest, Noah "40" Shebib's distinctively moody production style and Drake's genre-fluid approach to making music, his influence became impossible to avoid. He had a point on 2015’s “5AM in Toronto” where he rapped, “Every song sounds like Drake featuring Drake.” — W.K.

Beyoncé

Beyoncé is such a force that in many ways, she’s in a league of her own — but other artists have still followed her lead. With her self-titled album in 2013, she introduced the idea of the surprise release to the mainstream, transforming album releases into cultural events. Beyoncé and Lemonade also helped popularize the visual album, with every song having a video that contributes to one cohesive story. Both of these are so commonplace now, but Beyoncé played a major role in bringing them into the mainstream. She isn't always the first to do these things, but few do it with Bey’s scale and precision; she takes them from novel ideas to industry benchmarks. It’s tough to emulate her sound, but her impact is all over R&B. Chlöe is a signee to Bey’s Parkwood Entertainment imprint, Coco Jones has said that Beyoncé inspires her to show different sides of her personality on stage (“I’m not just heartbreaks and hotels,” she once said), and Monaleo is only the latest to have drawn inspiration from her iconic music videos. — W.K.

Pharrell Williams

It's tough to remember a time when Pharrell Williams wasn't doing his part to steer music and pop culture. He may not be as ubiquitous now as when The Neptunes (his duo with producer Chad Hugo) were on every other song on the radio during the 2000s, but more than 30 years after producing "Rump Shaker" for Wreckx-N-Effect, his ear is as sharp as ever. His beats helped make Clipse’s Let God Sort 'Em Out one of the best grown-up rap albums of the year; he's steadily contributing heat to A-list artists like The Weeknd, Usher and Snoop Dogg; and artists like Tyler, The Creator and Samara Cyn have directly cited his influence. Plus, his punk/hip-hop/R&B/funk hybrid stylings as one-third of the band N*E*R*D* were instrumental to much of the genre-bending that artists feel free to operate with today. — W.K.

Roc Marciano

Today’s most inescapable brand of underground rap, largely defined by drumless productions with infinite jazz and soul loops, has Roc Marciano to thank for it. After getting his start under the name Rampage as a member of Busta Rhymes’ Flipmode Squad, he went solo and perfected his formula with iconic indie classics like Marcberg and Reloaded, pairing his distinctive beats with some of the slickest bars you'll find. It was a callback to the boom bap of the ’90s, but still something new in its own right. Rappers like Boldy James, the late Brownsville Ka, Westside Gunn and his Griselda crew have all continued to build on the foundation that Roc created, but the architect is still active himself. He's independently released four albums within the past 12 months, including 656 in January. — W.K.

Ye (formerly known as Kanye West)

Ye is arguably the most impactful rap artist of the past 20 years, taking a different approach with every album and reshaping the direction of music in the process. There are lots of specific fingerprints: the way that 808s & Heartbreak inspired the ascendancy of AutoTune as a tool to convey aching pain; how the blend of social consciousness, self-consciousness and boastfulness that defined albums like The College Dropout and Late Registration lives on in newer artists like Deante Hitchcock and Ray Vaughn; and how the abrasiveness and distortion of Yeezus can be heard in newer artists like Playboi Carti and Lil Uzi Vert. And his theatrical, ambitious approach to stage design — the floating stage of the Saint Pablo Tour, the vibrant LED screen of Glow in the Dark Tour, for example — has changed the standard for what fans expect at live shows, hip-hop and otherwise. But more than anything, Ye has inspired hip-hop to think bigger: he expanded the cultural, emotional and sonic boundaries of hip-hop in ways that are truly unquantifiable. — W.K.

Young Thug

Melody has been a staple of rap for decades now, but with his solo music and his work as a member of Rich Gang, Young Thug created a distinctive twist. He's got one-of-one vocals that are cartoonishly malleable as Play-Doh, with lyrics and personality that are equally eccentric — a formula that helped reshape the sound of modern rap. Whether it’s YSL artists like Gunna, indirect influences like Lil Uzi Vert and Playboi Carti, or pop collaborators like Camila Cabello and Calvin Harris, Young Thug’s impact on music over the past 13 years has been undeniable. — W.K.

Chief Keef

Chief Keef had a meteoric rise in the 2010s, popularizing drill rap with renowned records such as "I Don't Like" and "Love Sosa" and spawning multiple regional movements in his wake. Chicago drill eventually evolved into Brooklyn drill through artists like Pop Smoke and Fivio Foreign, while Bronx stars like Kay Flock helped usher in drill's next phase. Across the Atlantic, U.K. drill developed into a dominant force of its own. Even artists who don't fit neatly within the drill label, like Ice Spice, carry traces of the movement's influence, while Cash Cobain has built on its foundation to help create the sexy drill subgenre.

Keef’s version of drill was just as much about sound as it was about feel: rumbling buzzy bass, unfiltered street imagery, lyrics that are slurred more than they’re enunciated. Keef himself even took credit for creating mumble rap in 2018, and whether you think he deserves that distinction or not, his impact is clear. Newer stars like Playboi Carti and Lil Uzi Vert directly speak to his impact on their own work, Cash Cobain has built on his sound to develop the sexy drill subgenre, and even the raw emotion and street lore of Youngboy Never Broke Again feel connected to the path Keef helped to create. — W.K.

Larry Heard

Larry Heard didn’t create house music, but with great ’80s records like “Can You Feel It” (under his moniker Mr. Fingers) and Robert Owens’ “Bring Down the Walls,” the Chicago native infused warmth and soul into the genre that many of its followers love it for today. Producers and DJs like Kaytranada and Channel Tres have connections to the path laid by Heard. Now in his 60s, Heard is still releasing music: he’s dropped several albums in recent years under both his birth name and his Mr. Fingers alias, including his latest LP, Leev Ur Mind, in April of this year. — W.K.

George Clinton

So much of Black music today is directly descended from George Clinton — sonically, visually and spiritually. He merged psychedelic rock, jazz, funk and more to create something completely new with Parliament-Funkadelic in the ’60s and ’70s, creating inventively synthy basslines and grooves that embraced collectivism, imperfection and feel over precision. It's an approach that caught on both philosophically and literally, with multiple generations of artists extensively sampling Clinton's work: Dr. Dre famously used it as the foundation for his G-Funk sound on albums like The Chronic and Snoop Dogg’s Doggystyle, De La Soul on their breakthrough hit “Me, Myself & I,” MF DOOM and Madlib on their classic album Madvillainy and Childish Gambino through Awaken My Love. The list goes on forever. Kendrick Lamar reintroduced listeners to Clinton by featuring him on “Wesley’s Theory” from his 2015 album, To Pimp A Butterfly. Beyond the sonic impact, George Clinton's Afrofuturistic storytelling and characters helped pave the way for artists like OutKast, Janelle Monae, Thundercat and Bartees Strange. — W.K.

Q-Tip

When it comes down to it, Kamaal Ibn Fareed, aka Q-Tip, is the closest hip-hop has ever come to having a full-fledged, multifaceted Renaissance man. He’s the ultimate vibe creator—you could be at the Colosseum in Queens, the Apollo in Harlem, or a swanky hotel lobby in Stockholm, and when a Tribe Called Quest song comes on, it still hits the same. His versatility as a producer, lyricist, actor, music director and culture curator is unmatched. Who else do you know that can produce hard-hitting tracks for Nas and Mobb Deep and then flow effortlessly on smooth soulful cuts with Janet Jackson?

There's also the groundbreaking production and composing work he executed with The Ummah collective alongside Detroit's J Dilla and his ATCQ cohort, Ali Shaheed Muhammad. The DNA of that work still lives on in artists like Tyler, The Creator, Little Simz, Noname and Smino, all of whom continue to blur the lines between jazz, soul and hip-hop in ways that feel directly connected to the foundation Q-Tip helped build. Like a well-aged, pristinely preserved fine wine, all he does is get better with time. Queens stand up, and pay homage to the incomparable Abstract Poet. — Geo Haggan

Raphael Saadiq

R&B music has several different lanes, styles and movements, but no matter the prism you look through, Raphael Saadiq is a musical genius and proven innovator. From his foundational creations with Tony! Toni! Toné! to his genre-bending work with Lucy Pearl, Saadiq has shown time and time again that his soulful sound is timeless, edgy and always forward-looking. Singles like “Get Involved” (with Q-Tip) and “Be Here” (with D’Angelo) will forever belong in the vault of elite R&B/soul music.

Then, of course, there's the long list of top-tier talent he's written and collaborated with: Beyoncé, Prince, Tupac, Babyface, Erykah Badu, Brent Faiyaz, Whitney Houston and Mary J. Blige, to name a few. His influence can still be heard throughout modern R&B, where artists continue to embrace live instrumentation, classic songwriting and soul-forward production. He's certified R&B royalty and really deserves more flowers than he currently receives for his wide-reaching accomplishments across the vast expanse of Black music. — G.H.

D’Angelo

When D’Angelo passed away last year after a private battle with pancreatic cancer, it felt like the entire music world stopped in its tracks. For those of us lucky to have been around to experience the euphoria of listening to the first singles from his debut album, Brown Sugar, we know how immense his impact was on music as a whole. D’Angelo is way bigger than the “neo-soul torchbearer” label he’s often associated with — a descriptor that limiting is simply inadequate. He was a generational talent who embodied the pure essence of funk, soul, jazz and R&B, and even hip-hop.

The fingerprints of D'Angelo's work can still be found throughout contemporary R&B, from artists like H.E.R., Lucky Daye and Leon Thomas to artists like Anderson .Paak, Steve Lacy and Silk Sonic, who continue to embrace the fusion of funk, soul, jazz and R&B that helped define his catalog. There are certain inflection points that happen in the Black music timeline continuum — enigmatic occurrences that forever alter the trajectory of what comes afterwards. That’s what D’Angelo represents to the culture, and sadly, his musical genius left us way too soon. — G.H.

Future

While other rappers focused on bars and hooks, Future decided to make them the same thing. After emerging in the early 2010s, the trap superstar used narcotized melodies to turn conventional couplets into micro-anthems you could murmur under your breath. With warbling tracks like "Turn on the Lights," he could turn the tale of a lovesick playboy into something cathartic. With the opiate "Codeine Crazy," he could pull you into a D-Boy's drug-addled delirium. Commercially, that approach helped earn 228 Billboard Hot 100 singles and 11 No. 1 placements on the Billboard 200 albums chart. Cosmically, it created a new default rap style for a generation of codeine-crazy hip-hop melodicists. — Peter A. Berry

Nicki Minaj

Blending a theater kid's sense of aesthetics with playful sexuality and a b-girl's rap tenacity, Nicki Minaj became the default template for a generation of rap women. We don't want to say she brought camp to hip-hop, but those colorful wigs, twitchy voices and her penchant for genre-hopping elevated it to its maximalist extreme. Years after her debut, it's as impossible to imagine hip-hop without "Super Bass" as it is to picture pop music without Britney Spears’ "...Baby One More Time.” While folks understandably disagree with a lot of what she’s said and done the last few years, 149 Hot 100 singles is a cultural footprint that even toxic Twitter fingers can't erase. — P.A.B.

Tupac Shakur

Lost in all of Tupac's considerable mythology is, somehow, his elite multi-functionality. While most rap stars struggled to hold down one or two musical personas, Tupac managed three. Or four. Or five. And he didn't simply mimic those perspectives: he embodied them. On tracks like "Hail Mary," he could be a ghostly gangster ruminating from the underworld. Meanwhile, on "Brenda's Got a Baby" or "Keep Ya Head Up," he switches between a diagnostic street reporter and a sympathetic friend of the homegirls. And then he could still let loose City Boy anthems like "I Get Around."

That emotional range became a blueprint for generations of artists, from Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole to Nipsey Hussle and YoungBoy Never Broke Again, who similarly balance vulnerability, social commentary, street narratives and larger-than-life charisma within a single body of work. Thirty years after his death, one person being able to do all of these songs feels impossible. In an increasingly nihilistic world, so does a rap star even being willing to. — P.A.B.

Lil’ Kim

Before there was Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, Latto, GloRilla or Sexyy Red, there was Lil' Kim. Emerging as a member of Junior M.A.F.I.A. before launching a groundbreaking solo career, Kim helped redefine what a female rapper could look and sound like. Her unapologetic sexuality, luxury fashion, technical lyricism and larger-than-life persona created a blueprint that still shapes hip-hop today. Whether through image, confidence or artistry, nearly every modern woman rapper exists somewhere along a path Lil' Kim helped pave. — Aleia Woods

T-Pain

T-Pain didn't invent Auto-Tune, but he transformed it from a corrective tool into an instrument. Through hits like "I'm Sprung," "Buy U a Drank" and "Bartender," he helped normalize melody as a primary language in hip-hop and R&B. The influence is impossible to ignore today. Artists like Drake, Future, Travis Scott, Young Thug and countless others have built on ideas T-Pain helped popularize. Before melodic rap became the industry's default setting, T-Pain was proving that singing, rapping and experimentation could all exist in the same record, even if he caught flak for it — cue Jay-Z’s "D.O.A." ("Death of Auto-Tune"). — A.W.

Lil Wayne

For much of the 2000s, Lil Wayne wasn't just rap's biggest star — he was its most influential. Through an unmatched mixtape run, relentless work ethic and punchline-heavy style, Weezy became the blueprint for an entire generation of artists. Drake, Nicki Minaj, Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Young Thug and countless others have cited him as an influence. Beyond the bars, Wayne helped normalize vulnerability, experimentation and artistic freedom within mainstream rap. More than a decade removed from his commercial peak, his fingerprints remain all over contemporary hip-hop. — A.W.

André 3000 and Big Boi

OutKast didn't just elevate Southern hip-hop — they permanently expanded the genre's creative possibilities. At a time when rap's hotbeds were concentrated on the East and West Coasts, André 3000 and Big Boi forced the industry to recognize Atlanta as a central point for innovation. Across albums like ATLiens, Aquemini and Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, the duo blended funk, soul, rock, jazz and electronic influences into music that refused to follow convention. Their willingness to experiment opened doors for generations of artists, from Kendrick Lamar and JID to Childish Gambino and Tyler, The Creator. Today, much of hip-hop's genre-fluid approach can be traced back to OutKast's fearless vision. — A.W.