Paying Homage
A verified registry of the people building, making, and shaping what shows up on black.wiki. Over time, verified entries will receive plaques, certificates, and contributor cards — a durable record of who put in the work.
Dr. Dre — The Chronic
Dr. Dre's 1992 solo debut that introduced Snoop Dogg and reshaped West Coast hip-hop.
Eddie Murphy — Delirious
1983 Eddie Murphy stand-up film — one of the highest-grossing stand-up specials ever.
Erykah Badu — Baduizm
1997 Erykah Badu's debut — the founding text of neo-soul.
Erykah Badu — Mama's Gun
2000 Erykah Badu album that defined neo-soul's mature phase.
Eve's Bayou
Kasi Lemmons's 1997 directorial debut, a Southern Gothic family story set in 1960s Louisiana.
Eve's Bayou (Director's Cut)
Kasi Lemmons's 1997 directorial debut — a Louisiana family drama with supernatural overtones.
Frank Ocean — Blonde
2016 Frank Ocean album that re-set the contemporary R&B aesthetic.
Get Out
Jordan Peele's 2017 horror feature debut about a Black man visiting his white girlfriend's family.
Goodie Mob — Soul Food
1995 Atlanta album that introduced the term "Dirty South" into hip-hop vocabulary.
Greenwood District
Places
The one-square-mile Tulsa neighborhood that became the most prosperous Black business district in early 20th-century America — and was destroyed by a white mob in 1921.
Hidden Figures
2016 film based on Margot Lee Shetterly's history of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson at NASA Langley.
Ice Cube — AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted
Ice Cube's 1990 solo debut after leaving NWA.
Imani Perry — South to America
2022 National Book Award winning travel/cultural memoir.
Insecure
Issa Rae's 2016–21 HBO series adapted from her web series Awkward Black Girl.
James Baldwin — The Fire Next Time
1963 essay collection arguing that Black America's survival depends on white America's reckoning.
Janelle Monáe — Dirty Computer
2018 album and emotion picture that exploded sci-fi, Afrofuturism, and queer Black identity.
Janet Jackson — janet.
Janet Jackson's 1993 album — the lowercase title was a statement of intimacy.
Janet Jackson — The Velvet Rope
1997 album that opened up Black female vulnerability in the public-facing mainstream.
Jay Z — The Blueprint
2001 Jay Z album released on September 11, 2001.
Jesmyn Ward — Sing, Unburied, Sing
2017 novel and second National Book Award winner — Mississippi Gulf Coast family on a road trip to a penitentiary.
Jimi Hendrix — Star Spangled Banner
Jimi Hendrix's 1969 Woodstock performance of the national anthem.
Kendrick Lamar — DAMN.
2017 Kendrick Lamar album that won the Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Kendrick Lamar — good kid, m.A.A.d city
2012 Kendrick Lamar's major-label debut, a sprawling Compton coming-of-age story.
Kendrick Lamar — To Pimp a Butterfly
2015 album mapping racial trauma, Black mental health, and the cost of fame.