Let’s Talk About Black Women In The Music Industry

Keniera Wagstaff
7 min readFeb 7, 2023
Photo Credit by Keniera Wagstaff

As you ride in your car today and turn on your radio you might hear the catchy new flow of Glorilla’s summer anthem “FNF” or Beyonce telling us that she’s about to f**k up the night on her latest single “CUFF IT.”

The funk of each lyric causes you to turn up the dial and sing along. The song goes off after four short minutes but then another female artist like Lizzo or Nicki Minaj follows up keeping the momentum alive.

As you continue your drive you might catch your kids in the back seat making a TikTok or even catch your hubby humming and nodding to the beat.

For years, black women have been dominating the airwaves but in today’s music world, you see a trend of black female artists receiving opportunities that have never been seen before. Although currently, the music industry is still male-dominated, African American females have been on the rise in all categories. This sparked woman empowerment in the Black community and potentially a women’s revolution within the music industry.

Since the 1920s, music has created opportunities for black women.

Black women have always been at the bottom of the social pyramid in the US. Although white women were allowed to be ethnomusicologists during the 19th century, black…

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Keniera Wagstaff

Keniera is a journalist , songwriter, entrepreneur, and filmmaker from Baltimore, MD.