The album marked a commercial decline in the Black Radio Series, after it failed to chart on the Billboard 200. However, it received favorable reviews from music critics. At the 65th Grammy Awards, it was nominated for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, and won Best R&B Album. The track "Better Than I Imagined" featuring H.E.R. and Me'Shell Ndegéocello also received the Grammy for Best R&B Performance that year.
According to the review aggregator Metacritic, Black Radio III received "generally favorable reviews" based on a weighted average score of 75 out of 100 from 4 critic scores. Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 7.3 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.
Mancy Gant of the Rolling Stone wrote: "As an enjoyable fan-service sequel intended to offer music of comfort and solace, Black Radio III is fine. As an artist, Glasper is allowed to get into his beatmaker bag, relaunch the Black Radio brand, and leave the New Jazz Thing bleeding edge to others. But one can’t help but wish the stakes were a bit higher." Saby Reyes-Kulkarni of Paste stated: "Black Radio III makes a rather compelling case for jazz and hip-hop as mutually sustaining forms that not only beautify and propel one another forward, but also provide the inspiration for the rest of us to do the same amongst ourselves. The album grapples openly with America’s collective inability to come to terms with the paradox of being fascinated by a people and a culture that it’s put so much energy into denigrating."
