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partially inspired by a picture Ocean
found of a young girl in a car with her
hands covering her face and “a mop
of blonde hair.” Taking cues from this
image, Blonde simulated the feeling
of cruising in a car, the sun nearly set
as wind drifts through open windows.
There was a stillness to the album, qui-
eter than ORANGE but no less socially
active. “Pour up for A$AP [Yams], RIP
Pimp C,” he sang on “Nikes,” honoring
two fallen hip-hop artists. “RIP Tray-
von, that ni**a look just like me.”
All of these albums arose as Black
Americans still struggled to reconcile
the senseless deaths of Eric Garner,
Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, Mike Brown
and Freddie Gray, and in the summer of
2016 we had two more souls to mourn:
Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.
Black people were rightfully furious.So when Beyoncé’s sister, the equally
powerful yet more reserved Solange,
doubled down on this notion for her re-
markable third studio album, A Seat at
the Table, it soothed like balm to raw
skin. Seat was an expansive mix of scant
soul, a for us, by us record with the
beauty of Black womanhood squarely
at the center. “Cranes in the Sky” was,
among other things, about her transi-
tion into motherhood. “Don’t Touch
My Hair” wagged a finger at the white
gaze. It arrived just over a month before
Trump’s stunning win. And while many
predicted dark days ahead, no one could
envision the endless lowlights to come.Now there is a perceptioN that a
sense of calm has returned to the Oval
Office. But just last month we wit-
nessed a white- supremacist insurrec-
tion at the nation’s Capitol, and we’re
not far removed from the racial reckon-
ing of last summer, seeking justice for
George Floyd, for Breonna Taylor, for
Ahmaud Arbery. This time, the furor in
the street made for a timeline of great
singles rather than albums: .Paak’s
“Lockdown,” Alicia Keys’ “Perfect Way
to Die,” SAULT’s “Wildfires.” Some of
the artists of 2016’s renaissance and the
run-up to it have gone quiet in the in-
tervening years. D’Angelo is in the den
again, as are Lamar, Ocean, Rihanna and
Solange. Beyoncé’s latest release, Black
Is King, was as much a visual work as a
musical one, about the beauty and el-
egance of African culture.
Time has only heightened the mag-
nitude of these musicians’ work, which
showcased the broad spectrum of Black
culture and creative freedom. They por-
trayed our diversity, proving once more
that we have rights to the same range of
outward expression that others are af-
forded. The musical renaissance of 2016
wasn’t just a moment in Black history; it
was a sea- changing event for American
history overall. There’s no telling when
these luminaries will return with their
latest offerings, or what tone they’ll as-
sume. But we can trust that the raw
emotion of the past five years will make
for rich new works.Moore is the author of The Butterfly
Effect: How Kendrick Lamar Ignited
the Soul of Black AmericaA DIFFERENT
KIND OF
PROTEST
MUSIC
FROM RIHANNA to Beyoncé,
Frank Ocean to Solange and
Anderson .Paak, 2016 saw
Black artists at the peak
of their creative powers
responding to the world
around them by getting
more introspective. Albums
on which they asserted
their humanity, in a society
seemingly determined to
deny it, took on a new kind of
political meaning.