Around 1990, buoyed by the success of Bill Cosby's situation comedy and Oprah Winfrey's daytime talk show, there was a renewed visibility of African-American pop culture in the mainstream. Movies such as Do the Right Thing (1989; directed by Spike Lee) and Boyz 'N the Hood (1991; directed by John Singleton) represented a point of arrival for black directors. The new Fox network (and, to a lesser extent, NBC) featured the situation comedies Living Single, Martin, and A Different World, which starred and were, to varying degrees, written, directed, and produced by African-Americans. These shows treated their subject matter in a more unapologetically black way and were less dependent on the stereotypes of past shows like The Jeffersons or Good Times, both from the 1970s. (1) Another Fox show, In Living Color, represented a similar increase in the presence of mainstream black comedians (a way paved in the 1980s by Eddie Murphy). Murphy's protege, Arsenio Hall, was able to sustain a mainstream talk-show format from 1989 to 1994 that nevertheless maintained a black point of view. (2) And of course in music, which had never lacked a strong African-American presence, hip-hop had made a significant mark on the charts; as a wide range of musicians became familiar with this music, some began to appropriate aspects of it for their own music, though not always with great success.

What is significant about all these cultural products is that they demonstrated an unapologetic blackness while still enjoying mainstream popularity. That is, even if the material seemed to be about and to address African-Americans, white people felt invited in, too. Non-African-Americans could learn how to respond to this new material by judging the responses of black audience members or other cast members. Certainly black musicians, comedians, and actors had long been a part of America's collective culture. But around 1990 the black presence in popular culture seems to have taken a major step forward. (3)

This renewed blackness was felt in popular song, both in up-tempo dance songs and romantic ballads. The black pop ballad of the mid- to late 1980s had been dominated by a vocal and production style that was smooth and polished, led by singers Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, and James Ingram. (4) With such artists, it was not uncommon for certain songs to succeed on the mainstream-pop charts, yet do almost nothing on the r&b charts. James Ingram provides the best example: "I Don't Have the Heart" (1990) was number one on the Billboard Top 100 Singles, but peaked at only number fifty-three on the r&b charts. (5)

Singers such as Luther Vandross, Freddie Jackson, and Anita Baker utilized more ornamented singing in their music. Notably, their songs were consistently more successful on the r&b charts than the pop charts. Baker's "Just Because" (1988), for example, went to number one on the r&b charts, but only to fourteen on the pop charts. (6) Further, "Just Because" and several other Baker hits continue to be played on black radio, while...