Are a highly secularized version of Gospel music, HBCU marching bands (I think - I went to a PWI, but a lot of my family went to HBCUs), the shriveled remnants of people drawn to the ashes of Neo-Soul types venues, mostly in major black enclaves (NYC, DC, Atlanta, etc.), and that's it.

To the overall question of why the quality isn't as good, that has to do with the lack on identifiable instrumentation in the music. It's really hard to pick out any instrument other than maybe a bassline in today's music.

In order for the music to keep going, kids have to hear particular instruments and be interested in learning that instrument. The kinds of kids who grow up to be talented, passionate musicians are ones who heard particular musicians and songs they wanted to emulate. In the past, a kid would hear a Louis Armstrong record and say "I want to play the trumpet", or hear Aretha playing piano and take their lesson that much more seriously.

But today's popular black music just sounds like a soup of sound (and not in any good kind of way).

I look at the popular music scene in a place like Brazil, or Cuba, where tragically poor kids in favelas and barrios still know guitar or cavaquinho or horns. Granted, Cuba is a special place because the Communists vigorously support music education, but the point is that because much of the popular music contains clear, identifiable instrumentation, kids want to emulate that, and their music scenes are still strong.

Wait, what are we talking about, again? This is my pet topic.