Hey there, Teed. Yes, you are correct that Blacks have always enjoyed a degree of mainstream success, but until the advent of hip hop, the Black edges usually had to be sanded off. Lionel Richie found his greatest success as a pop balladeer, and peak-era Michael Jackson is more pop than the sound of Blackness. Even Beyonce found superstardom as a polished crossover star, and that gave her the freedom to eventually be more true to who she really is, in regards to both her music and her image. But despite her critical acclaim, Beyonce has struggled at pop radio since she started transitioning to more unadulterated Black music with 4 (her only number ones have been collabs with Ed Sheeran, a Whiter than White singer from the UK, and Megan Thee Stallion, a rapper.) If you look at the pop charts today, the biggest Black female stars are all rappers. The biggest Black female singers to emerge post-Beyonce (the SZAs, the Tinashes, and the H.E.R.s) enjoy considerably less mainstream commercial success than White female singers (and Justin Bieber) performing R&B-inflected music. Aretha Franklin, one of the greatest singers to ever live, never earned a Grammy nomination in any of the Big Four categories, and Beyonce has won zero Album of the Year Grammys to Taylor Swift's three and Adele's two. I always enjoy hearing from you. Thanks for reading my stuff.