No African-American artists had a no. 1 pop hit in 2013

theGRIO REPORT - Although producer Pharrell Williams was behind two of the year's biggest hit songs and Beyoncé dropped one of its biggest selling albums, there were no black artists with a number one pop hit in 2013...

TheGrio Staff

Jan 13, 2014

Although producer Pharrell Williams was behind two of the year’s biggest hit songs and Beyoncé dropped one of its biggest selling albums, there were no black artists with a number-one pop hit in 2013 — the first time this has happened in over 50 years.

According to TIME, this is a huge shift from just 10 years ago, when every chart-topping hit that year was made by a black performer.

Oddly enough, white artists even dominated the R&B charts last year 44 out of 52 weeks.

Is this just an anomaly or a sign that popular music is growing increasingly segregated and exclusively white?

“Music fans are playing out an un-ironic version of Stephen Colbert’s joke about not seeing color—we’re cool with the idea that authentic rhythmic music can now come from anyone, and yet somehow, when the data is compiled about what we’re all buying and streaming, the Timberlakes and Matherses and Macklemores keep winding up atop the stack, ahead of the Miguels and J. Coles,” writes Slate’s Chris Molanphy.

Adding insult to injury, no artists of color were included in this year’s list of Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame inductees.

Molanphy writes: “This year the Hall will induct Daryl Hall and John Oates—an act with a long history of soul-music appreciation that once even topped the R&B chart—so Rock Hall voters are honoring the sound of black music. Just not actual black people.”