Black Culture Sets the Trend, It's Time We Own a Piece of It

Every few months, the internet becomes obsessed with a new trend, and if we are being real, you usually don’t have to dig too deep to find Black culture near the beginning of it. Our music, our language, our humor, our fashion, our dances and even the way we tell a story have been setting the pace for popular culture for generations. Social media just made it easier to watch it happen in real time. Something starts in our community, catches fire, and before you know it, everybody is doing it. The part I think we have to start paying more attention to is who makes the money once everybody joins the party.

The viral “Hotel Lobby” trend is the latest craze which traces back to Quavo and Takeoff’s 2022 COLORS performance. It's simple, an orange backdrop, one microphone, two artists and the kind of natural chemistry that can't be manufactured. Years later, creators took that visual and turned it into an AI trend, dropping themselves into their own versions of the performance. Overnight it spread like wildfire. Fans were doing it. Celebrities were doing it. Brands were doing it. Russell Simmons jumped in with his own version and fans even created a version with Barack & Michelle. And because we lost Takeoff far too soon, there is also something bittersweet about watching a moment connected to his artistry find a completely new life.

But this is bigger than one viral trend. We have seen this movie before, many times over. Migos gave us “Versace” in 2013, and what started as an Atlanta record became a cultural phenomenon before eventually finding its way onto a Milan runway. Then came “Bad and Boujee,” where one line could launch a thousand memes while the song climbed all the way to No. 1. Hip hop has done it  Black Twitter and Black TikTok and Black Fashion have all done it. The language that starts at somebody’s cookout, beauty shop, barbershop or college campus somehow ends up in a corporate marketing meeting six months later.

That's one of the things that's invaluable about Black culture. We can create something out of practically nothing and make it currency. There is power in knowing that people are watching, listening and taking notes on what Black people think is funny, cool, sexy, stylish or worth paying attention to. But at 51 years old, I am less impressed with being called influential if influence is the only thing we walk away with. At some point, influence has to come with a check, a contract, a percentage, a seat at the table or, even better, ownership of the table.

Because somebody is making money when one of these moments takes off. The platform gets the engagement. The app gets new downloads. The AI company gets new users and data. Advertisers get more eyeballs. Brands figure out how to turn the moment into a campaign. Meanwhile, the people and communities who created the sound, look, language or energy that made everybody pay attention can end up with millions of views and very little ownership in the larger economy that grew around them. Exposure may be nice, but exposure does not build generational wealth.

That is where the conversation has to change. We already know we have influence, so we can stop acting surprised every time mainstream culture discovers something we have been doing for years. The next level is learning how to leverage that influence while it still belongs to us. That means more Black people building the technology instead of simply becoming users of it. It means artists and creators understanding licensing, trademarks, partnerships and revenue sharing before their moment becomes everybody else’s moment. It means putting money behind Black-owned platforms, media companies and distribution systems so that some of the dollars generated by our creativity actually circulate back through our communities.

This does not mean we have to suck all the fun out of culture and turn every viral moment into a business meeting. Black creativity works because it is organic, funny, messy, communal and constantly evolving. I never want us to lose that. But joy and strategy can exist in the same room. We can laugh at the meme, participate in the trend, celebrate the artist and still pay attention to who owns the platform where all that cultural currency is being spent.

Black culture has already proven that it can move the world. We have nothing left to prove when it comes to influence. What we have to figure out now is how to make sure influence becomes equity, opportunity and ownership for more of the people who actually create the magic in the first place. Because if the trend starts with us, there is absolutely no reason the money should always end somewhere else.