The concept of Black History Month has always been slightly ludicrous – what, just a month? We should be studying and celebrating Black history 365 days a year. Black history is everyone’s history, as the Black Lives Matter movement and the historical moment we’re in make abundantly clear. 

Black creative engagement with this history is so rich that we welcome the opportunity to set aside some time for its appreciation all the same. Chances are, you’re already watching, reading and listening widely, but the following list brings together art representing diverse black perspectives, united only by their originality and excellence. Most of these – let’s be honest – you’d be into during any month of year. The sense of timeliness is just an added bonus.

Mr Munya Chawawa, YouTube

He’s recently been snapped up by Netflix, and not a moment too soon. Mr Munya Chawawa’s frequently viral videos of character comedy, featuring Jonny Oliver (Mr Jamie Oliver’s jerk-obsessed cousin), posh drill rapper Unknown P and newsreader Barty Crease, have been making us crack up for months. He’s silly, but with a satirical bite. It’s still unclear how the Home Secretary will recover after his devastating Skepta parody, “That’s Priti”.

**Lovecraft Country, **HBO and Sky Atlantic

Even if you’ve never heard of Mr HP Lovecraft (1890-1937), you’ve certainly felt his influence. Lovecraftian horror has its cosmic tentacles all over fantasy and sci-fi. Which is awkward, since the Massachusetts-based author was also a notorious racist, vicious even by the standards of his day. In this rip-roaring reclamation of genre space, showrunner Ms Misha Green collaborates with an incredible cast (Mr Jonathan Majors, Ms Jurnee Smollett, Mr Courtney B Vance, Mr Michael K Williams), plus big-name executive producers Messrs Jordan Peele and JJ Abrams, to tell a story about a black family’s adventures in 1950s Jim Crow US. Ultimately, though, this is a show that speaks as much to the future as it does to the past. 

Judas And The Black Messiah

Too few of us know about the fate of Mr Fred Hampton, the Chicago community activist who was reportedly drugged and executed by the FBI in 1969, when he was just 21 years old. That, in itself, should make you wonder. The casting of black British actor Mr Daniel Kaluuya as an African-American hero has been controversial, but Mr Kaluuya’s powerful performances (Get Out, Black Panther) have silenced critics before. The equally phenomenal Mr Lakeith Stanfield (Atlanta, Sorry To Bother You, Get Out) also co-stars as “Judas” FBI informant Mr William O’Neal, making this an odds-on classic before it’s even hit cinemas.

Small Axe, BBC and Amazon Prime Video

London-born director Mr Steve McQueen made some history of his own in 2014 when he became the first black director of any nationality to win a Best Picture Academy Award for 12 Years A Slave. Now he’s turning his gaze homeward with this highly anticipated anthology of films about black Britons in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, starring the stellar likes of Mr John Boyega, Ms Letitia Wright and Mr Malachi Kirby. This was an era of strained race relations, radical politics and all-night house parties, yet its stories have rarely been told on screen.

Walking With The Muses: A Memoir by Ms Pat Cleveland

The artist and trailblazing catwalk model Ms Pat Cleveland is as effortlessly glamorous as the peacocks she keeps at her New Jersey home. And, oh, the stories she can tell. Reading about her life – from growing up with her artist mother in Harlem, to dating Mr Muhammad Ali and shooting legendary Vogue covers – is like a night out in her company. Which is to say, fun, fabulous and full of famous friends.

Mr Loverman by Ms Bernardine Evaristo

Last year, Girl, Woman, Other won the Booker Prize, turning author Ms Bernardine Evaristo into a household name overnight. But it was hardly her first great exploration of the complexities of Black British identity. This 2013 novel tells the of Barrington Jedidiah Walker, a grandfather and Caribbean community elder, who’s led a double life since the 1960s. Now that his marriage to the deeply religious Carmel is breaking down, he’d like to move in with his long-term lover Morris. But is Barrington courageous – or cruel – enough to live life as he pleases? 

Black And British: A Forgotten History by Mr David Olusoga

These days, Mr David Olusoga has found a second calling shutting down racists on TV and Twitter. That he’s also a leading public historian with several books and BBC documentaries to his name may be overlooked. This book works as both a gripping read and a robust rebuttal to the notion that black people are somehow “less” British, resurfacing a shared history that stretches all the way back to Roman times. Like everything Mr Olusoga does, it’s calm, considered and full of electrifying insight.  

Zanele Muholi, Tate Modern (5 November 2020-7 March 2021)

“Artist” isn’t quite the right word for gender non-binary Mx Zanele Muholi. Instead, the South African subject of this winter’s Tate retrospective is a self-described visual activist, documenting the lives of black LGBTI people who “deserve to be seen”. Key works include their celebratory photographs of trans women in Brave Beauties, but it’s in ongoing self-portraiture series, the ancestor-praising _Somnyama Ngonyama _(translation: “Hail, The Dark Lioness”), that Mx Muholi makes boldest use of historic costume and imagery.

**Unfinished: Deep South **

Like many true-crime podcasts, Unfinished revolves around an unsolved murder. But in investigating the fate of Mr Isadore Banks, an African-American businessman and farmer who was lynched one night in 1954, journalists Ms Taylor Hom and Mr Neil Shea also reveal the complex economic and emotional legacy of American racism. 

**Trojan Calypso Box Set **

The Notting Hill Carnival is a huge feather in the cap of Black British history, so its Covid-related cancellation – for the first time since 1966 – was a loss felt across the country. At least, this box set from Trojan Records (itself a Black British institution) captures what founder Ms Claudia Jones would likely recognise as Carnival’s true sound. Those who prefer throbbing bass to steel drum need not feel excluded however; Trojan has dancehall, dub and ska compilations, too.