It was Nina Simone who said that “there’s no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were.” North Carolina MC and budding star Rapsody has taken that lesson to heart. Her astounding third album, Eve, is a “love letter to all black women,” with 16 songs named specifically for her heroes, from Simone and Oprah Winfrey to Sojourner Truth and Afeni Shakur. As Rapsody asserts her black womanhood and places it within a broader historical context, she unlocks her full skillset and brings her creativity and ingenuity to the fore. This is the record where her top-tier status becomes undeniable.

Rapsody crashed through rap’s glass ceiling when her second album, 2017’s Laila’s Wisdom, was nominated for Best Rap Album at the Grammys. She lost to her friend Kendrick Lamar, but she helped kick open a door that had been closed to women since 1997. (Cardi B’s Invasion of Privacy won the following year.) The case could be made that Laila, Rapsody’s grandmother, was simply the first woman in the rapper’s exhibition of strong women role models, one that also hinges on Ms. Lauryn Hill. “I didn’t know who Nina Simone was until I got into Lauryn Hill,” she told NPR. “In that sense, there would be no Lauryn Hill without Nina Simone, and without Lauryn there would be no me.” Rapsody carefully traces this heritage while making a clear-cut case for her place in it.

From Beyoncé’s Homecoming, which couched its ideas in conversation with Nina Simone, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Clark Sisters, Big Freedia, Maya Angelou, and Toni Morrison, to Jamila Woods’ LEGACY! LEGACY!, which honored forebears like Betty Davis, Zora Neal Hurston, Nikki Giovanni, Eartha Kitt, and Octavia Butler, to recent exhibitions like “Black Women: Power and Grace” and “Posing Modernity,” which consider the erasure of black women from art canon, it’s clear there is an uprising occurring: Black women have been demanding ownership of their outsized impact on culture. When holding these works on top of each other you can see the overlaps; a formative syllabus comes into shape. Eve name-checks Simone and Angelou in its tracklist. A song for Eartha Kitt simply didn’t make the cut. It expands the model to include athletes Serena Williams and Ibtihaj Muhammad, Michelle Obama and civil rights activist Myrlie Evers-Williams, models Tyra and Iman. Spoken-word homages from poet Reyna Biddy pull these icons into orbit around Rapsody, as she delivers the loosest, most captivating performances of her career.

Across Eve, she sounds more relaxed, surer of herself. On songs like “Whoopi” and “Iman,” she loosens her flow without losing her sharpness. A self-professed rapper’s rapper, Rapsody has been taut and inflexible in the past, almost as if having to force her immense talent to overcome a deck stacked against her. It sounds like she’s in a home-run trot on Eve. “Y’all banked on the wrong ones, wasted your energy/Lost more interest, got me laughin’ at my enemies/Every door you close, every back you turn/Can’t keep me away from the life I earned,” she snaps on “Cleo.” She sounds unstoppable and liberated, like no one can deny her what’s hers anymore.

Rapsody wields the namesakes on Eve not as reference materials but as stepping off points for considerations on colorist beauty standards, black capitalism, activism, and drive. She raps about being counted out, singled out, and fed up. “This ain’t E.T. news, I done went sci-fi/I’m closer to God, I done went sky high/Been alienated so much that I must be fly,” she gloats on “Aaliyah.” She’s locked in, he wordplay as clever as ever, but she also doesn’t feel beholden to past versions of herself. The updated model is multifaceted with catchier hooks, nimbler rhyme schemes, and a willingness to ad-lib.

They say you can’t teach an old super-producer new tricks, that a sample head will always remain stuck in the dusty soul loops he conjures, but 9th Wonder evolves with Rapsody here, perhaps out of necessity, as her raps continue to expand in force and scope. Alongside Eric G, Nottz, and Khrysis, the other in-house producers at his label, Wonder assists her in reaching new places. There is nothing faded about these beats, which are modern, rich in tone and texture. As an Uncle Luke sample ushers Rapsody forward on “Serena,” she uncorks syncopated cadences and brings out the work ethic she speaks of. “Nina” reclaims “Strange Fruit” from Kanye and “Afeni” channels Tupac’s “Keep Your Head Up,” as if unifying the Shakur family in its admiration of black women’s strength. Throughout the hour, Rapsody is striking this perfect balance between paying tribute and spreading her wings.

She is as comfortable trading bars with Leikeli47 on “Oprah” as she is Queen Latifah on “Hatshepsut,” both of whom make formidable sparring partners. But the message is one of inclusivity, of banding together to receive the respect that is long overdue. And it isn’t just about being acknowledged; it’s about taking a rightful place in the hierarchy. For Rapsody, specifically, that means being as respected as her male peers often spoken of as successors. She proves to be as much an inheritor of the Roc Nation legacy as J. Cole on “Sojourner,” as much of a student of Shakur doctrine as Kendrick on “Afeni.” As Rapsody salutes the heroes that are and were on Eve, her own reputation grows.