The creator economy has long outgrown the idea that influence only belongs to entertainers working within traditional gates. Today’s most magnetic cultural voices are building audiences in real time, shaping taste, language, beauty standards, family life, political conversation, and even how we understand humor itself.
EBONY’s Creator’s Era list exists to honor that shift by spotlighting the Black creators who are not simply going viral, but defining what this era of media, storytelling, and cultural impact actually looks like.
This year’s list reflects just how wide that reach has become. The current honorees include DeAndre Brown, who turned the language of the “corporate baddie” into a full-fledged career commentary brand; Godfrey & Akbar, whose One54 podcast brings sharp diasporic perspective to the forefront; IShowSpeed, whose evolution from internet chaos agent to global entertainment force signals just how far creator culture can stretch; Alliyah’s Face, whose beauty and lifestyle content balances aspiration with intimacy; and Gracie’s Corner, the family-built phenomenon that has helped reimagine children’s media through joyful education and Black representation.
The list, curated by EBONY staff, also builds on a strong bench of past Power 100 honorees who helped establish its point of view in the first place. Creators such as Druski, Kai Cenat, and Khaby Lame have each shown how digital charisma can become global currency, while figures like Lynae Vanee, Ziwe, and Kamie Crawford brought wit, commentary, and perspective into the space in ways that pushed the medium forward. Others, including RaeShanda Lias, Aaliyah Jay, Funny Marco, Keith Lee, and Alexis Nikole Nelson, show the range of what Black digital influence can look like, spanning beauty, food, comedy, critique, and community, all while continuing to move the culture in unmistakable ways.
YouTube
Allyiah’s Face
Beauty and brains were just a few of the things Allyiahs Face (full name Allyiah Gainer) used to build her creator empire. Allyah’s Face rose by making beauty and lifestyle content feel aspirational yet relatable and attainable. Her organic ability to tie in GRWMs into personal vlogging has caused an insatiable need of content from her fanbase. The NAACP-nominated creator has expanded beyond content and recently partnered with Dossier to launch her first fragrance duo.
That Chick Angel
That Chick Angel’s rise has been powered by her rare ability to make motherhood, marriage, comedy, and commentary all live in the same room. Angel Moore’s ability to exist as every version of herself at once has built an audience across platforms, including roughly 475K on Instagram, over 600K on Facebook, and 190k on YouTube. In the past few years, she has turned that presence into real cultural currency, from the viral life of “One Margarita” to recent NAACP Image Award recognition, proving that her comedy works just as well in the algorithm as it does in legacy spaces.
Gracie’s Corner
Birthed by Dr. Javoris Hollingsworth and Arlene Gordon-Hollingsworth and brought to life through the voice of their daughter Graceyn, Gracie’s Corner became a sensation by doing what children’s media too often failed to do: center Black kids in educational content that feels joyful, musical, and visually affirming. Now with roughly 6.17M YouTube subscribers, the family-built brand has grown into a cultural force whose impact stretches far beyond the screen, helping reshape early-learning media through representation, affirmations, and songs that have resonated in homes and classrooms alike. Children everywhere have benefited from Gracie’s Corner.
IShowSpeed
IShowSpeed came of age in public, rising from a hyperactive teenage streaming phenomenon into one of the most recognizable young entertainers on the internet, now with roughly 51M+ YouTube subscribers and the kind of global visibility most creators never reach. What makes his story more interesting now is the evolution: after years of being known as the kid online who could turn chaos into virality, Speed (born Darren Jason Watkins Jr.) has started to look more like a young adult with a real vision, using headline-making moments like his 2025 Royal Rumble appearance and his wide-ranging Africa tour across 20 countries to build something far bigger than streaming alone.
Bigg Jah
Bigg Jah was able to build an audience through LA-focused “hood comedy” that ultimately spread much further in the internet-era sketch culture, turning self-written and self-produced videos into a loyal fan base of roughly 1.8M on YouTube. Now, the creator-born filmmaker, born Jahdai Pickett, is pushing further into longform storytelling with L.A.U.G.H., his new anthology series on Tubi, a sign that his digital hustle is expanding into a fuller entertainment universe.
Podcast
My Momma Told Me Podcast’s Langston Kerman and David Gborie
When two friends turn Black conspiracy theories into a comedy format that is insanely culturally specific as it is wildly listenable, you get the My Momma Told Me Podcast. Since launching in 2020, the Langston Kerman and David Gborie-led podcast has become a standout comedy series, and the duo remains active with new episodes that continue proving there is still plenty of room for absurdity, critique, and community memory to coexist in the same show.
Drea and Lex P Pour Minds Podcast
Few podcasts have turned the art of kicking back with your homegirl into a media language quite like Pour Minds. Anchored by a glass of wine and the easy, unfiltered chemistry between Drea Nicole, whose energy often feels sharp, stylish, and self-possessed, and Lex P, whose candor and larger-than-life humor give the show much of its spark, the series has grown into one of the culture’s most recognizable women-led conversation spaces, blending dating talk, vulnerability, sex, and friendship with the kind of honesty that keeps listeners coming back.
Shawn Stockman’s On that Note Podcast
Built on the kind of music authority that cannot be manufactured, On That Note draws its weight from Shawn Stockman’s legacy as one-third of Boyz II Men and his lived understanding of what great records actually require. Now, instead of just reflecting on the canon, he is using the show to get closer to the craft itself, pulling artists, songwriters, and producers like Bryan-Michael Cox and Shanice into conversations that feel part oral history, part master class.
Godfrey and Akbar’s One 54 Podcast
When two African brothers link up, you’re bound to have meaningful dialogue, velvet-wrapped in a sense of humor that everyone can enjoy. On One 54 Podcast, Godfrey Daneschmah and Akbar Gbajabiamila bring humor, opinion, and cultural fluency to conversations about African life, identity, and ambition in America. Still early in its run, the show already feels like it is building toward something broader, using interviews with entertainers, athletes, and business leaders to shape a sharper lens on what modern African influence really looks like.
Grits and Egg Podcast
A sharp point of view has always been Deanté Kyle’s real engine, and Grits & Eggs works because it feels less like a polished media product than a conversation already happening in the culture. What began as social-first commentary has grown into a podcast brand powered by Kyle’s mix of pop culture, current events, and unfiltered opinion, with roughly 649K on TikTok helping drive a presence that still feels immediate, loud, and unmistakably of the moment.
Nichole Hill’s Our Ancestors Were Messy Podcast
Rather than sanding Black history down into something overly respectable, Nichole Hill has built Our Ancestors Were Messy around the truth that the past was complicated, intimate, funny, scandalous, and deeply human. That sensibility has turned the podcast into one of the most exciting newer entries in audio, and now, with award recognition and a donor-backed second season, Hill is pushing archival storytelling into something far more alive and culturally current.
Taryn Delanie & Tiffani Singleton
Whether serving as heaven’s deadpan receptionist or as a dog loving grand dame, besties Taryn Delanie and Tiffani Singleton’s digital stardom is still early in its run, but the appeal is already clear: from their friendship-first skits that serves up sisterhood with mess, laughter, and emotional honesty to their individual content navigating life as young women on the verge of greatness. Their rise is less about virality than chemistry, and right now, they are building their platforms as recurring homes for real laughs.
Josh Johnson
Most creators reflect parts of society back to us in ways that feel timely and genuine, and Emmy-winning comedian does that via the medium of comedy. Johnson’s sharp writing pen combined with his mix of wit and deadpan humor has made him a staple in the late-night circuit dating back to 2017 on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and subsequently a recurring correspondent role on The Daily Show.
Johnson has amassed a following of over 2.2M on Instagram and nearly 8M across socials by consistently delivering humor in snackable yet substantial ways.
Vic Mensa
Vic Mensa’s brand has always been rooted in his unapologetic need to speak his mind and express his values. The GRAMMY-nominated rapper, who has long woven his Chicago roots into the DNA of his music, has also expanded his presence into conversations around mental health and socioeconomic issues, casting Mensa as an individual people want not simply to see, but to hear. He has become known for a distinct visual style that often finds him eating an orange while calmly speaking about the things we should care about and the issues we should know more about.
More recently, Mensa has tied those threads together with the launch of his Sundiata clothing brand, which features socially conscious themes, including its “Liberation” jerseys. He has amassed roughly 2M followers on Instagram and nearly 4M across all socials.
Nikko Smith
When people want to dress like the stars — or find their inner star — they turn to fashion voices like Nikko Smith. Smith has become revered in the fashion and content worlds for series like “STYLE CLASS,” where he helps women master their personal style by understanding how to flatter their specific body types rather than simply chasing trends. The Dallas native pairs a high-fashion editorial aesthetic with a down-to-earth, relatable approach that offers something for fashion lovers and casual followers alike. With a growing audience of roughly 465K on Instagram, Smith is certainly a creator to watch.
Monet McMichael
Equal parts beauty insider and internet homegirl, Monet McMichael has built one of the most magnetic lifestyle brands of her generation by making glam feel approachable, conversational, and deeply watchable. With roughly 1.3M on Instagram and 5.5M followers across platforms, she has moved well beyond GRWMs and into a bigger era of influence, using partnerships like her Rose Era fragrance with Snif to show just how naturally her world can stretch into product and business.
Sonja Norwood
What started with the visual pleasure of intricate cakes and custom desserts has grown into something richer for Sonja Norwood, whose Wick’d Confections platform helped her build roughly 944K on Instagram before she widened the lens. These days, she is reaching past food as aesthetics and into food as memory, heritage, and storytelling, using lost Black American recipes to connect creator-era content with something older, deeper, and worth preserving. The latter series resonated with audiences so much that it garnered dozens of millions of views on Instagram.
Walter “Mr. Tendernism” Johnson
Before the internet made him a catchphrase, Walter Johnson understood something essential about hospitality: people remember how you make them feel. That warmth plus his viral videos of cooked meat gloriously falling off the bone, helped turn Mr. Tendernism into a breakout presence with roughly 309K on Instagram, and now, after going solo and securing the Tendernism trademark, he is stepping into a more self-defined chapter where the personality is no longer just viral, but fully his to build from.
EJ Speaks
Drawn from the rhythms of everyday life, EJ Speaks’ comedy lands because it feels pulled from real rooms, real people, and real frustrations instead of content-factory punch lines. With roughly 566K on Instagram and an audience that stretches across radio, stage, and digital, EJ (née Evette James) is continuing to build a brand that moves fluidly between skits, live appearances, and personality-driven media without losing the intimacy that made people tap in in the first place.
TikTok
Boman Martinez-Reid
What once felt wildly specific to Boman Martinez-Reid has now become its own social-media language. Long before reality TV spoofs became a familiar genre across platforms, Boman was the one shaping the blueprint, using razor-sharp impressions, faux confessionals, and pitch-perfect parody to turn reality television into one of the internet’s coolest comedic forms. Now, with roughly 2.2M on TikTok, he is pushing that sensibility even further, leaning into hosting, spoof music that still feels stylish and self-aware, and screen projects like Made For TV and Overcompensating, proving his world extends far beyond the app that first made him pop.
Shena
Softness, style, and motherhood all move together in Shena’s world, where family life is presented with enough polish to feel aspirational and enough honesty to still feel lived in. After breaking through with series like #MommysFancyRestaurant and building roughly 1.8M on TikTok, she is continuing to shape a lane rooted in parenting, ritual, and core-memory content that turns domestic life into something both tender and highly shareable.
Deandre Brown
The term “corporate baddie” is everywhere now, and plenty of people use it, but DeAndre Brown is the originator who turned it into a real brand. The college graduate first rose in content creation through conversations around landing internships and first jobs, using humor to deliver sharp career advice and hot takes on corporate America. Now, with roughly 1.1M on TikTok, the creator known as The Corporate Baddie has expanded far beyond office skits, using his platform for motivational content, interviews, and reflections on career identity, self-worth, and what it means to unapologetically require more.
Clarke Peoples
Aspirational but self-aware, polished but never completely inaccessible, Clarke Peoples built her audience by documenting the realities and contradictions of moving through elite spaces as a young Black woman with vision. That point of view helped her grow to roughly 966K on TikTok, and now, with recognition from Forbes and a steadily expanding creator profile, she is showing how a once-niche lifestyle lens can mature into a serious media business.
Taylor Cassidy
Education has always been at the center of Taylor Cassidy’s rise, but what made her breakthrough feel special was the speed, ease, and joy with which she delivered it. Through her “Fast Black History” videos, Cassidy built roughly 2.2M on TikTok, and now she is carrying that same mission into bigger spaces, from a TIME100 Creators nod to her book Black History Is Your History, expanding her role from social educator to one of the clearest young historians of the digital age.
Chan & Jamal Morant
Built on chemistry, consistency, and a real understanding of what makes family content click, Chan and Jamal Morant have turned everyday couplehood, parenting, and household humor into a major digital brand. Together, the duo has built an audience of roughly 4.2M on Facebook, proving that creator success is not just about trend-chasing, but about making relatable life feel warm, funny, and worth coming back to.
Emanuel Okusanya is the former music editor for EBONY.