Notes from America has a deep interest in Black History all year round, you know that.

But we do also take note of Black History Month.

In this year, we're thinking about it in the present tense.

Throughout February, we'll bring you a series of conversations where loosely calling

Black History is now.

We're going to meet people doing cool things in Black spaces who think about their

work as part of a continuum, like it grew out of something that came before, it's

trying to feed something or someone that's going to come after.

A meal will begin is one such person.

The Grammys are tonight and it's worth thinking about just how dominant both

hip hop and R&B are in today's global music market.

Industry data suggests these genres easily combined for the largest market share.

At one point a few years back, Nilsen data showed eight out of the ten most

streamed artists were rappers.

And Emil Wilbacan had a front row seat for the era in which the seeds of that

commercial dominance were planted, the early 1990s, a time when the success of

a few massive Black artists, people like Michael Jackson and Prince and Tina Turner,

kind of opened the commercial door for this eruption of unapologetically

Black popular culture.

There were Black fashion designers or Black fashion models.

There was, you know, movies and TV.

So we were very, very present and it was exciting.

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