2023

Viola Davis won the Grammy Award for Best Audio Book for 'Finding Me,' her memoir, completing the rare EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) achievement. She became only the third Black woman to achieve EGOT status, joining an extremely exclusive group of entertainers who have won all four major awards.

LeBron James surpassed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's record of 38,387 points to become the NBA's all-time leading scorer. The milestone, achieved in Los Angeles against the Oklahoma City Thunder, was celebrated as the crowning achievement of a generation-defining career.

LeBron James surpassed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's record of 38,387 career points to become the NBA's all-time leading scorer, a record that had stood for nearly four decades. The milestone cemented James's place alongside the greatest athletes in American sports history and highlighted a legacy built on both on-court brilliance and social activism.

Rihanna's Super Bowl halftime performance drew over 118 million viewers, the most-watched halftime show in history at that time, and she performed while visibly pregnant. The show sparked the largest single-day sales increase in music streaming history, affirming her status as the most commercially successful Black female musician of her generation.

Viola Davis completed the EGOT — Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony — when she won a Grammy for Best Audio Book for 'Finding Me,' her memoir. She became the first Black woman in history to achieve all four major American entertainment awards, cementing a career of extraordinary range and artistic achievement.

Victor Wembanyama, the 7-foot-4 French phenom of Central African and Caribbean descent, was selected first overall by the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Draft, the most hyped draft prospect in decades. He went on to win NBA Rookie of the Year and was widely described by coaches and analysts as a generational talent unlike any seen before.

French-born Victor Wembanyama was selected first overall by the San Antonio Spurs, drawing comparisons to no player in history for his unique combination of size, wingspan, and skill. His arrival in the NBA was described by LeBron James and others as the most anticipated debut of any player ever.

Sha'Carri Richardson won the 100-meter title at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, completing a redemption arc after her Tokyo Olympics ban. Running 10.65 seconds in the final, she became World Champion and set the stage for her Paris Olympics campaign.

Coco Gauff won the US Open women's singles title, defeating Aryna Sabalenka in three sets to claim her first Grand Slam championship at 19 years old. The win placed her in the lineage of Serena and Venus Williams as a dominant Black American force in women's tennis.

Cori 'Coco' Gauff won the US Open singles title at age 19, becoming the youngest American woman to win the US Open since Serena Williams in 1999. Gauff, who had grown up idolizing Serena, wept on court and became the face of a new generation of American tennis.

Netflix released 'Rustin,' a biopic of Bayard Rustin, the openly gay Black civil rights organizer who masterminded the 1963 March on Washington. Colman Domingo received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his portrayal, bringing renewed attention to Rustin's largely erased legacy.

Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson won his second NFL Most Valuable Player Award for the 2023 season, becoming only the third player in NFL history to win the award multiple times. His unanimous selection confirmed his status as the defining dual-threat quarterback of his generation.

Nigerian Afrobeats superstar Burna Boy won his second Grammy Award for Best Global Music Album for 'I Told Them...,' cementing Afrobeats' arrival as a dominant global genre. The win reflected the profound influence of the African diaspora on the American music industry and Black American cultural connections to the continent.

Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner and former teacher backed by the Chicago Teachers Union, was elected Mayor of Chicago, defeating moderate candidate Paul Vallas. Johnson's election represented a progressive turn for the nation's third-largest city and a significant win for the labor-left coalition.

Singer and actress Halle Bailey starred as Ariel in Disney's live-action remake of 'The Little Mermaid,' the first Black actress to play the iconic princess in a major production. The casting sparked widespread debate about representation and nostalgia, and the film grossed over $560 million worldwide.

Ta-Nehisi Coates published 'The Message,' a work of narrative nonfiction connecting the experience of Black Americans to global struggles for liberation, including in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which generated substantial public debate. The book extended Coates's influence as one of the most consequential Black public intellectuals of the era.

Three-time National Book Award finalist Jesmyn Ward published 'Let Us Descend,' a lyrical novel following an enslaved young woman on a journey from North Carolina to Louisiana. The book was an immediate critical triumph, hailed as Ward's most ambitious work and shortlisted for major prizes.

Cord Jefferson's satirical film 'American Fiction,' based on Percival Everett's novel 'Erasure' and starring Jeffrey Wright, premiered at TIFF and won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. The film's skewering of the publishing industry's expectations of Black authors was widely celebrated.

A new adaptation of the beloved Broadway musical version of 'The Color Purple' was released on Christmas Day, featuring Fantasia Barrino, Danielle Brooks, Halle Bailey, and Taraji P. Henson. The film became a significant box office success and earned Danielle Brooks a Golden Globe nomination.

Bronx rapper Ice Spice achieved mainstream crossover success in 2023, collaborating with Taylor Swift on a remix of 'Karma' and with Nicki Minaj on 'Barbie World.' She became one of the most visible faces of New York drill music and a pop-culture phenomenon representing a new generation of Black women in rap.

Memphis rapper GloRilla received Grammy nominations for Best Melodic Rap Performance and Best Rap Song for 'F.N.F. (Let's Go),' her breakthrough anthem that became a rallying cry for female independence. Her success brought renewed national attention to Memphis rap's distinctive regional sound.

British-Nigerian rapper Little Simz won the BRIT Award for Best New Artist, marking a breakthrough for one of the UK's most critically acclaimed MCs. Her 2021 album 'Sometimes I Might Be Introvert' had already won the Mercury Prize, cementing her place as a defining voice in Black British music.