As part of the second annual STAMPED By EBONY series for Black Music Month, this year’s theme—“The Headliner”—celebrates the artists who dominate our group chats, are driving the cultural zeitgeist, but also have ascended from early beginnings to bona fide superstars.

Black music’s influence spans every corner of global culture: from the thrill of discovering a new voice with friends to watching that same act graduate from free mall shows to sold-out stadiums, like Travis Scott. French-Haitian crooner Joé Dwèt Filé has long cultivated a loyal following, but a newly widened appetite for the Black diaspora’s many sounds is propelling him to international acclaim.

Former child-star alumni Coco Jones and Leon Thomas have shed their Disney and Nickelodeon pasts to become bona fide headliners,

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