THE COLLABORATIVE AGE
What NVIDIA, Asian Tech, and the Future of AI Teach the Black Music Industry — and the Entire African Diaspora
By Lennon English
INTRODUCTION: When a Musician Studies Microchips
There’s something almost mystical about standing between two worlds. When one hand holds a saxophone and the other hand holds a candlestick chart, you start to see patterns most people miss. Folks assume music and technology live on opposite ends of the universe. But to me, they’re mirrors. Music trained my spirit. Technology sharpened my mind. Finance is disciplining me and teaching me strategy.
And somewhere inside that trifecta, I started seeing the world with new eyes.
The deeper I studied NVIDIA and the AI ecosystem rising quietly across East Asia, the more I realized that the Black music industry, the Black business landscape, and the global African diaspora have been living inside the same misunderstanding Western analysts have about AI.
We think we’re watching a competition.
But the truth is, we’ve been standing outside a collaboration.
This article is about that misunderstanding—how NVIDIA became the conductor of the AI age, how Asian tech embraced deep cooperation instead of rivalry, and what the Black world can learn from that to build something stronger, freer, and more powerful than anything we’ve inherited.
PART I — The West Doesn’t Understand NVIDIA Because It Doesn’t Understand Collaboration
When Western analysts talk about NVIDIA, it’s always in the language of rivalry. AMD vs NVIDIA. Intel vs NVIDIA. Google TPUs vs GPUs. It’s all treated like a boxing match, round after round, quarter after quarter. That’s the American way of seeing business—somebody wins, somebody loses.
But that’s not how the AI supply chain works. Not in the places that matter.
In East Asia—the true heart of global semiconductor power—companies don’t fight each other. They synchronize. They specialize. They lift each other. They build an ecosystem, not an arena. TSMC doesn’t want to be NVIDIA. ASML isn’t trying to be Intel. Samsung isn’t chasing Qualcomm.
Everybody becomes a master of one sacred craft, and they trust the others to do the same.
That’s how you leapfrog a planet.
And NVIDIA, though technically an American company, aligned itself with that philosophy. They didn’t try to dominate every part of the AI stack. They didn’t try to compete with fabrication or materials science or memory production. They became the architect—the mind that designs the future.
And here’s the part Wall Street still refuses to understand:
NVIDIA told the entire ecosystem what was coming 15 years ago.
They didn’t hoard the vision.
They shared the roadmap.
They identified the companies who were the best at what they did in invested in and prepared them as their allies.’ leading the way into a bold future.
Due to NVIDIA’s partnerships, investments, and visionary leadership…
TSMC advanced lithography ahead of schedule.
ASML perfected EUV.
Samsung and SK Hynix built the memory stacks AI would need.
AMAT evolved the materials science.
Qualcomm refined wireless logic.
It was a coordinated leap forward.
Which is why AMD can’t catch up, why Intel keeps stumbling, and why Google’s TPU still depends on NVIDIA’s software world. The beautiful thing is, they no longer need to. In the last year, NVIDIA brought AMD and Intel into their global fold, investing billions in both companies and many others so they too could elevate and offer their very best technology to AI development and benefit from the collaborative success of the entire AI industry.
NVIDIA didn’t “beat” its competition.
It stepped outside the concept of competition entirely into global collaboration.
It became a conductor.
And the rest of Asia became the orchestra. We are watching a tech symphony.
Meanwhile the West is still arguing about who’s first chair in the trumpet section.
To make the Western misunderstanding even more ironic, NVIDIA publicly told investors in 2023 that it would no longer count China revenue due to political chaos. That means everything NVIDIA earns in China is “extra”—unmodeled, unexpected, unaccounted for.
Analysts keep underestimating NVIDIA because they’re using the wrong worldview. They’re treating a family like a fight.
PART II — The Same Misunderstanding Lives in the Black Music Industry
The more I saw how Western analysts misread NVIDIA, the more I started recognizing the same thing in the world I come from.
Black music built everything—jazz, blues, rock, funk, hip-hop, R&B, house, techno, Afrobeats. But instead of seeing our ecosystem as an interconnected universe, the industry treated each artist like a separate gladiator.
Who’s the king of R&B?
Who’s the queen of hip-hop?
Who’s the best producer?
Who’s on top this quarter?
Fragmentation was profitable—for everybody but us.
Labels collaborated with each other:
sharing studios, sharing lawyers, sharing executives, sharing leverage.
But Black artists were encouraged to think individually, competitively, in isolation.
And yet every time Black artists managed to collaborate—even briefly—we changed the world.
Parliament Funkadelic didn’t just make music; they built an entire universe.
The Soulquarians created a new sonic era by sharing creativity like a jazz commune.
Wu-Tang built a licensing and branding empire that business schools still study.
OutKast transformed Atlanta into a cultural capital.
No Limit Records turned efficiency into an art form.
And Beyoncé reconstructed the very idea of a fan base into something alive, intelligent, and global.
When we collaborate, we create worlds.
When we compete, we create moments.
Moments make hits.
Worlds make empires.
And empires last.
PART III — The Diaspora Has the Same Problem: We Think We’re Separate
Looking at NVIDIA’s ecosystem showed me a larger truth: the African diaspora has everything it needs to become a global superpower—except integration.
Africa holds the minerals.
The Caribbean holds shipping routes.
Black America holds cultural soft power.
Europe holds access to markets.
Brazil holds demographic strength.
Nigeria holds creative force.
Kenya holds fintech innovation.
Atlanta holds film and media.
Detroit holds manufacturing.
Lagos holds digital energy.
We’re not missing resources.
We’re missing coordination.
We don’t lack talent.
We lack infrastructure.
We’re not short on creativity.
We’re short on connection.
We are NVIDIA at the level of innovation but early-2000s America at the level of structure—everybody building separately, everybody competing for the same spotlight, everybody hustling with the same raw brilliance but without the shared blueprint.
Imagine if we built our version of NVIDIA’s collaborative ecosystem.
Imagine if the diaspora stopped behaving like rivals and started operating like a global guild.
Imagine if every region mastered its specialty and trusted the others to hold theirs.
We would be unstoppable.
PART IV — What the Black World Can Learn from NVIDIA’s Philosophy
NVIDIA’s secret is simple:
It collaborates.
It specializes.
It shares the blueprint.
It builds the ecosystem.
And by doing so, it controls the future without having to conquer anything.
The Black world can do the same.
Imagine a Black music economy where artists own the platforms, the algorithms, and the distribution pipelines. A world where Black tech companies train AI on our sounds and stories. A global network where diasporic nations and cities support each other, circulate wealth among each other, and build structures together.
A world where we don’t chase acceptance—we design systems.
A world where we are no longer the soundtrack of culture—we are the architects of it.
A world where we stop being the performers and become the producers of the entire experience.
NVIDIA chose collaboration.
Asia chose orchestration.
And now it’s time for the Black world to choose unity.
Not as a dream.
As a strategy.
Because when we move as one ecosystem, instead of a hundred isolated hustlers, we stop being competitors.
We become conductors.
We become creators on a planetary scale.
We become the NVIDIA of our own destiny.
And the world won’t just listen.
It’ll follow.