Every February, The Current honors Black History Month. We'll be celebrating by spotlighting black musical artists whose voices and songs changed the world, throughout the decades and across genres. We've also posted a series of essays delving into a deep, enduring and ever-evolving body of work. In this final entry, 15 artists talk about the influence and intersection of black history, music, and culture.

Curtis Mayfield

[A Change Is Gonna Come, by Craig Werner, 1999]: "As a young man I was writing songs like 'Keep On Pushing' and 'This Is My Country' and feeling all the love and all the things I observed politically. Of course with everything I saw on the streets as a young black kid, it wasn't hard during the later '50s and early '60s for me to write through my own heartfelt way of how I visualized things, how I thought things oughta be...When you're talking about songs such as 'We're a Winner,' that's locked in with Martin Luther King. It took something from his inspiring message. I was listening to all my preachers and the different leaders of the time. You had your Rap Browns and your Stokely Carmichaels and Martin Luther Kings, all of those people were there right within that same era. They get their credit and rightfully so...People of all colors were trying to push [interracial harmony] along ever since there's been slavery. Not just the minority or blacks. Everybody in this country at one time or another has been a minority, wherever they come from. We just made a good loud noise as far as congregating."

Wynton Marsalis

[Ebony, 9.4.12]: "[Jazz] can teach you how to be a better citizen in the world; to be better to yourself, and how to expand your world view, in a world that is expanding all the time...The more expanded your world view is, the more confident you are in your cultural achievements, and in yourself. And the more you know how to approach other people and respect them, the more successful you'll be living in the modern world. Through improvisation, jazz teaches you about yourself. And through swing, it teaches you that other people are individuals too. It teaches you how to coordinate with them. The lessons of jazz are even more pertinent today, because when it was invented, the art form was so modern: It was talking about a world that would come. And now that we are on the cusp of that world, the music is very timely.

Nina Simone

[From What Happened, Miss Simone?, by Alan Light, 2016]: "To me, we are the most beautiful creatures in the whole world, black people. I mean that in every sense, outside and inside. We have a culture that's surpassed by no other civilization, but don't know anything about it. So my job is to somehow make them curious enough, or persuade them by hook or crook, to get more aware of themselves, and where they came from, and to bring it out. This is what compels me to compel them, and I will do it by whatever means necessary. As far as I'm concerned, my music is addressed to my people, especially to make them more curious about where they came from and their own identity and pride in that identity. We don't know anything about ourselves. We don't even have the pride and the dignity of African people. We can't even talk about where we came from, we don't know. It's like a lost race, and my songs are deliberately to provoke this feeling of 'Who am I? Where did I come from? Do I really like me, and why do I like me? And if I am black and beautiful, I really am and I know it, and I don't care who says what.' That's what my songs are about, and it is addressed to black people. Though I hope that in their musical concept, and in their musical form and power, that they will also live on after I die, as much as they are universal songs, too."

Chastity Brown

[The Bluegrass Situation, 8.23.16]: "I just finished watching the Nina Simone documentary [What Happened, Miss Simone?]. She was doing her thing; she was rocking it; she was blowing up all over the world. And then the Civil Rights movement happened, and she couldn't help herself. I felt a kinship to that feeling: I cannot help myself. I talk about Black Lives Matter at every single concert, and I often will follow it with a Nina Simone song, because she's such an eloquent woman. I lean on her in that moment, and say, 'If I can't be eloquent enough, let Nina Simone do it.' "

George Clinton

[Huck, 4.24.18]: "Funk is the DNA of booty movin' music. Sly calls it 'the long tail' effect. You can find it in electronica, hip hop or plain ol' rock'n'roll. It'll be around forever, just like classical music. But it seemed the least likely to have that impact [50 years ago]. Musicians would say, 'Oh, it's funky' — lookin' down their noses at it. And I wanted it to be so relevant that you have to look up to it. I think we've succeeded in doing that."

Cassandra Wilson

[Pop Matters, 8.12.12]: "I've been a musician since I was five years old. The most important thing to me has been the music. When you get together with great musicians, you don't separate yourself from them. You join them in the quest to make great music. That is the dynamic you need in order to best manifest this music that we call jazz...It's not my favorite word to use to describe improvisational music that grows from the blues. It's a discipline, an approach, a way of life, of looking at things — much more than a genre. You have people who may understand the mechanics of it, but do they understand the mission of it? If you ok at the history of the music, how it grows out of an African-American experience, then the music is about freedom. And that is the emotion you need to have to express the music."

Ray Charles

[From Brother Ray, by Ray Charles and David Ritz, 1978]: "Some people told me that I'd invented the sounds they called soul — but I can't take any credit. Soul is just the way black folk sing when they leave themselves alone."

Jon Batiste

[npr.org, 2.13.19]: "Before music was something that was bought and sold and put into genre categories and all these things, it was the fabric of everyday life. It was a part of the functional community: There's music when someone's born, there's music when someone dies, there's music to eat to and music to sleep too, there's music everywhere. It was a way for us to worship, or a balm for our pain, or a way for us to figure out who we are and affirm our humanity in situations that were trying to negate that we were even human. We were property. So if the idea of us being property urges us and inspires us to create music and art that's transcended the world, anything that comes in that lineage has validity — whether it's the blues, to hip-hop, to anything beyond that we don't even know is about to happen. So for me, I think that it is it's less about reclaiming and more about us connecting to who we always have been. That's what we do.

"The lineage of where this music came from, and the purpose of this music, is for us to learn the wisdom of those who have come before us, and to transcend all of the oppression that was put on the most innovative performers and geniuses of our time because of the color their skin. That was something that I really keyed into when I was learning how to play. Coming up in New Orleans, the music is still just a part of the culture, in a way where you have these older musicians like village elders — leaning over your shoulder and showing you how to play, how to sing, how to write."

William Bell

[Stax recording artist/songwriter, at TheCurrent.org, 2.16.19]: "We wrote about life and we wrote about things that were happening in the times that we were living in then — the Civil Rights struggle and all the other things. People, they needed that assurance that everything was gonna be alright. They could have escapism for going to concert for four hours and listen to a bunch of people singing before they go back into the world and face the reality...as an artist we had a responsibility to put forth the best quality stuff that we did, because we were influencing a lot of people."

Rhiannon Giddens

[The Bluegrass Situation, 9.8.17]: "I remember having a conversation with Sharon Jones, when we were on the set of The Great Debaters. We were part of a music scene in the movie for a split-second. I had never met her before and listening to her talk about how hard her life had been primarily because of her skin color and going, 'Wow. I had no idea how bad it could be.' I just shut up and listened to her talk because this was a woman a generation older than me and she had a lot of shit she needed to say, and I needed to hear it. Having that experience, I took that into myself and felt like, 'I'm going to use my advantages and I'm going to not really think about what may not be happening for me because of who I am.' I have to stay focused on that because I do have advantages and I do have privileges. And I'm going to use that to try to tell these stories."

Anderson .Paak

[Austin Chronicle, 3.18.16: "[While making my 2016 album, Malibu] the Sixties stuck with me, y'know? It wasn't too pretentious, the style was dope, and the singers were amazing. Like Sam Cooke, Otis Redding. [I learned] from those artists, but I didn't want to make a retro record. If you're doing black music, you should have a core understanding of where that comes from, and the fundamentals — so you're not some bozo thinking you're doing something new."

Mavis Staples

[From A Change Is Gonna Come, by Craig Werner, 1999]: "Music is healing. It's all there to uplift someone. If somebody's burdened down and having a hard time, if they're depressed, gospel music will help them. We were singing about freedom. We were singing about when will be paid for the work we've done. We were talking about doing right by us. We were down with Martin Luther King. Pops [Staples] said this is a righteous man. If he can preach this, we can sing it."

James Brown

[From his 1986 autobiography, The Godfather of Soul]: "When people talk about soul music, they talk only about gospel and R&B coming together. That's accurate about a lot of soul, but if you're going to talk about mine, you have to remember the jazz in it. That's what made my music so different and allowed it to change and grow...There was one sound I couldn't hear anywhere but in my head. I didn't have a name for it, but I knew it was different. See, musicians don't think about categories and things like that. They don't say, I think I'll invent bebop today or think up rock 'n' roll tomorrow. They just hear different sounds and follow them wherever they lead."

Solange

[Discussing her 2016 album A Seat At the Table at npr.org 11.11.16]: "I think that title has a lot of different subtexts. I think one of the seats at the table is also saying that, you know, I'm inviting you to have a seat at my table. And it's an honor to be able to have a seat at our table and for us to open up in this way and for us to feel safe enough to have these conversations and share them with you. I think that, you know, so many times, black people — or any people who are oppressed — have to constantly explain to people what's right and wrong and what hurts and how to approach this. And I think that even me, I'm still learning so much about other cultures and I think that when you have the opportunity to learn from that, you are gracious and you are appreciative and you listen. And so that was also my way of saying I am opening myself up to everyone to have a seat at this table."

Nas

[In an open letter/video titled "We Continue to Rise" at Google Arts & Culture, February 2018]: "Music has scored my life since day one...I was blessed to have love from both of my parents, and it just so happens that my father's love for music took him around the globe via his own sonic excursions, both live and recorded. Pops would come back with mad loot (cash money, that is) from around the world. It was a testament to his globetrotting and a cool little nod to me that said, young blood, when you're ready, the world is yours. We had oodles of instruments at the family crib, many of them with origins in the Motherland. It was through the blues and jazz and folk music that my father played that I learned the importance of our history — our African ancestry, our struggles here as black Americans and ultimately, our great triumphs too. Black culture was an everyday thing in our household and in the streets that flowed through the great maze of our beloved Queensbridge: the housing projects that taught me and my comrades a plethora of lessons that were harsh, harrowing and humble...

"I was raised to understand that every month was Black History Month. That every day, my ancestors, contemporaries and everyday dreamers like myself can, shall, and continue to make history. Our music has been a relentless advocate for our story, which plays a crucial role in the American narrative: Red, white and blues, baby. I would realize — through the education I received from my parents and my own travels — that Robert Johnson, Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan and Slick Rick were one in the same. Native storytellers who shined a light on our purpose, preserved our legacy and, without question, rocked the house. The conversation never stops and we all continue to push it steadily along, through our arts n crafts and even within the way we speak. Bumps in the road can't stop this. Some might argue that this here scribe is talking a whole lotta jazz but anyone fly enough and culturally astute enough to listen will hear what we're saying.

"We are here. From the beginning. For forever. From science labs to spaceships, from jazz riffs to higher consciousness, we continue to rise."