Entry · catalog no. 0047
the blacker the berry
/ /ðə ˈblækər ðə ˈbɛri/ /thuh BLAK-er thuh BEH-ree
phrase · Black South in origin; nationwide since the Great Migration · 1910s
✓ Verified
1.
A saying holding that the darker a Black person's skin, the more beautiful and desirable they are. It works as a direct rebuttal to colorism, the preference for lighter skin that operates both from outside Black communities and within them. Historically it was said most often of dark-skinned Black women. In later use, particularly in hip-hop, it has been extended from beauty into a broader claim about the value and depth of Blackness itself.
“Her grandmother told her the blacker the berry every time some fool at school ran his mouth about her complexion.”
Origin & Attribution
Black American, rooted in the folk speech of the Black South and carried north with the migrations. It surfaces first in the blues and in collected folk rhymes: W. C. Handy, born in Florence, Alabama, sets it in a verse of "St. Louis Blues" in 1914, and Thomas W. Talley, a Black chemistry professor at Fisk University in Nashville, prints a folk rhyme built on it in his 1922 collection Negro Folk Rhymes — rhymes he had gathered from Black informants across the South over the preceding decades: "I loves my gal, she hain't no goose — blacker an blackberries, sweeter an juice." Wallace Thurman took the proverb as the title of his 1929 Harlem Renaissance novel about colorism, which fixed it in print for a national readership. It has been recirculated by every generation since.
1914
W. C. Handy sets the proverb in a verse of "St. Louis Blues"
1922
Thomas W. Talley prints a folk rhyme built on it in Negro Folk Rhymes, evidence of its life in Southern Black oral tradition
2015
Kendrick Lamar titles a track "The Blacker the Berry," turning the proverb from a defense of beauty into an indictment
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The South
Black South in origin; nationwide since the Great Migration · 1910s
Spoken by
Black Americans across regions and generations
$THEBLAThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Revived112 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
88/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1914
in the culture
Recorded here
2026
point of first record
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@nolakid
New Orleans, LA
@htxdri
Houston, TX
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Citations & Sources
■
W. C. Handy, "St. Louis Blues," published September 11, 1914
blues composition
■
Thomas W. Talley, Negro Folk Rhymes: Wise and Otherwise, 1922, p. 95
folklore collection
■
Wallace Thurman, The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life, 1929
novel
■
Tupac Shakur, "Keep Ya Head Up," 1993
rap single
■
+ Cite a sourceKendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry," from To Pimp a Butterfly, 2015
rap single
See also