Songfacts®:

• Fifty-one years after Nina Simone gave us "Young, Gifted And Black," Chris Pierce delivered "Young, Black and Beautiful," which he says is about "Black self love."
  
  "It's the song that I would have benefitted hearing as a child," says Pierce. "My hope is that this song reaches the hearts of black children and parents alike and extends to the hearts of all. Black IS beautiful and blackness should be celebrated, not feared."
• Pierce released this song on June 18, 2021, the first day Juneteenth was celebrated as a federal holiday. Juneteenth, which honors the end of slavery in America, is celebrated every year on June 19, but because that date fell on a Saturday, it was celebrated a day earlier in 2021. It became a federal holiday on June 17, 2021 when President Joe Biden signed it into law.
• Chris Pierce made a mark in 2017 when his song "We Can Always Come Back To This" was used in a powerful scene in an episode of This Is Us. "Young, Black and Beautiful" fits the narrative of his 2021 album American Silence, which deals with issues of race and a push for change. His activism and musical taste owe to his upbringing. He told Songfacts: "I grew up in Southern California, coming from a very diverse background. My father has an African American background while my mother is Caucasian. My mother grew up in the North and my father in the South. As you can imagine they both had very different experiences, different upbringing, different music. Their bravery and love brought them together."
• The music video is comprised of photographs shot by Mathieu Bitton, known for his work with Lenny Kravitz and Dave Chappelle. It was edited by Charles Little II.