Creating a top-10 list of metal songs by boisterous white dudes is effortless; the only potential difficulty in it is that there are too many options. Even choosing metal songs featuring female musicians would be less of an arduous task.
Yet, black metal musicians are most certainly out there. Somewhere at the intersection of personal taste and personal identity, they’re headbanging and shredding with the same spirited gusto as any white metal musician. In doing so, they’re going against the stereotypical grain and affirming their place and more-than-deserved positions in a music realm that frequently mirrors the biases, discrimination, and exclusion of the real world.
But Martin Luther King, Jr. didn’t fight for that. He didn’t intend for progress to start and end with his own efforts. So while it’s always important to pay attention to and support black everything, it’s even more crucial to recognize the struggle — and have a hand in dismantling it.
Navigating the fairly myopic world of metal as an African-American is alienating and discouraging at times, but being the devoted metalheads we are, our spirits will never be broken, and our fight for a permanent seat at the metaphorical metal table will never end. In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself on his day of remembrance, here are the 10 best metal songs featuring black musicians. As you read on, think less about the order they’re in and more about why there’s a list to begin with.