* Billie Holiday
* Ella Fitzgerald
* Nina Simone
* Sarah Vaughan
* Dinah Washington
* Miles Davis
* John Coltrane
* Charlie Parker
* Duke Ellington
* Count Basie
Literary influences:
* Emily Dickinson
* Walt Whitman
* Langston Hughes
* Maya Angelou
* Toni Morrison
* Zora Neale Hurston
* Alice Walker
* James Baldwin
* Ralph Ellison
* Richard Wright
Visual art influences:
* Romare Bearden
* Jacob Lawrence
* Norman Lewis
* Alma Thomas
* Beauford Delaney
* Elizabeth Catlett
* Samella Lewis
* Betye Saar
* Faith Ringgold
* Howardena Pindell
Film influences:
* Spike Lee
* Charles Burnett
* Julie Dash
* Cheryl Dunye
* Ava DuVernay
* Dee Rees
* Barry Jenkins
* Jordan Peele
* Ryan Coogler
* Boots Riley