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The 67th Annual Grammy Awards will take place this weekend (February 2nd)! We’re hoping to see big wins from our favorites including Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, Doechii, Andre 3000, Shaboozey and many more. Sasha Fierce and 3 Stacks are nominated for Album of the Year, which only 11 Black artists have won since the show’s inception. Speaking of award shows, the 97th Academy Awards are just a little over a month away. The nominees were announced last week and they were refreshingly diverse. Some of the Black names that are up for awards this year include Colman Domingo (Best Actor), Cynthia Erivo (Best Actress), and Zoe Saldana (Best Supporting Actress) just to name a few. If their names are called as winners on March 2nd, they will join a very rare group of people who can make that same claim. Only 63 African-Americans have won Oscars in different categories, including special prizes also distributed at the ceremony, like those for lifetime achievement.

As prestigious as the Oscar and Grammy clubs are, there is one that definitely tops them both. In Hollywood, EGOT status is referred to as the “grand slam” of American show business. It is achieved when an entertainer has won all four of the major American performing art awards (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony). These awards honor outstanding achievements in television, recording, film and Broadway theatre. There have only been 19 people to reach this legendary competitive milestone (25 if you count those who have done so with honorary or special awards). Out of that 19, only 4 have been Black (That number goes up to 7 when counting honorary and special award winners).

With that being the case, it’s super important to shine a light on these amazing talents and their unconquerable spirits. The individuals that are blessed enough to call themselves EGOT winners have exceeded expectations in ways unimaginable, opened doors for so many people who came after them and have left legacies that will never be forgotten. With us being knee deep in award season and Black History Month kicking off in a couple of days, we thought it would be a great idea to highlight the Black EGOT winners! Shout out to these masters or their artistry for showing Black people everywhere that there is no height that we can’t reach. Thanks to their brilliance, resilience and consistency, the entertainment business will never be the same for Black people!

(We included the 3 winners who have non-competitive EGOT status also).

They Made Black History: Highlighting The Legendary Black EGOT Winners  was originally published on ioneglobalgrind.staging.go.ione.nyc