Jay-Z’s Grammy speech and Beyoncé’s snubs reveal a deeper problem

There has long been outrage over Beyoncé’s Grammy snubs for the awards show’s highest honor, omissions that have angered fans and prominent celebrities alike.

At the 2024 awards on February 4, Beyonce’s husband, Jay-Z, was the latest to criticize them, criticizing the show for its history of overlooking black artistsincluding his superstar wife.

“We want everyone to do well, at least almost do well,” Jay-Z said. “I don’t want to embarrass this young woman, but she has more Grammys than everyone and she never won Album of the Year. So even by your own metrics, that doesn’t work.”

He became the latest of many prominent figures who have raised this point in some way, including the likes of Adela and, as is known, Kanye West in the past. Increasingly, Beyoncé references that are overlooked by institutions like the Grammys and the MTV Video Music Awards have become more common both because of how egregious they feel on the merits and also because of how egregious they are. for what they represent.

Beyond serving as an insult to her undeniable talent, Beyoncé’s treatment and the specific awards she has and has not won have become emblematic of the music establishment’s exclusion of black art. She is often cited as some of the most prominent examples reflecting this problem.

Why some awards matter more than others

As Jay-Z noted, Beyoncé has the most Grammy Awards from any musical artist – 32 – but never won the coveted Album of the Year award. AOTY is widely considered the show’s most prestigious honor, along with Best Director or Best Picture for the Oscars, and is often treated as the highest recognition the show has to offer.

Beyoncé has been nominated for AOTY four times as a soloist, but has lost each time. In 2010 she was nominated for I’m Sasha Fiercewho lost to Taylor Swift Brave. In 2015 she was nominated for Beyoncewho lost to Beck morning phase. In 2017, she was nominated for Lemonadewho lost to Adele 25. And in 2023, she was nominated for Renaissance, who lost to Harry Styles Harry’s house.

In 2017, the year in which Lemonade lost, Adele talked about it explicitly in her AOTY acceptance speech and emphasized the cultural impact Beyoncé’s album had had. “I cannot accept this award. And I feel very honored and very grateful and kind. But the artist of my life is Beyoncé. And this album for me, the Lemonade album, it’s so monumental”, Adele saying.

As the show’s highest honor, AOTY sends a powerful signal about the cultural impact an artist has had, making Beyoncé’s prolonged exclusion from a win in that category especially significant.

Notably, despite winning 32 Grammy Awards, he only won one of the awards known as the show’s “Big Four”: Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best New Artist. In 2010won Song of the Year for her hit song “Single Ladies.”

What Beyoncé’s snubs represent

This story is ultimately indicative of the much deeper problems the Grammys and other organizations have with race. In addition to the Grammys, both Oscar awards and the golden globes have been scrutinized for excluding black artists.

Beyoncé’s losses (and, in some cases, lack of outright recognition) in key categories underscore how black artists have been ignored at the Grammys’ most prestigious awards. According to a 2021 study From USC’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, Black artists made up 38 percent of all artists on Billboard’s Top 100 between 2012 and 2020, but only 26.7 percent of Grammy nominees for the Big Awards Four in that period.

In total, 11 black artists have won AOTY in the Grammys’ 60-plus year history, and only three of those artists are women. The last time a black woman won AOTY It was 25 years ago, when Lauryn Hill won by Lauryn Hill’s bad education in 1999.

As the Vulture put it In her article about Taylor Swift’s fourth AOTY win this past weekend, Swift “broke the record for most AOTY wins of all time and now has more wins in the category than all black women combined.”

There are other reasons why the Grammys have long had a credibility problem with the hip-hop community, as AD Carson, a hip-hop professor at the University of Virginia, wrote for the Washington Post in 2022. Jay-Z alluded to some examples of this exclusion in his comments on Sunday, describing how DJ Jazzy Jeff and Will Smith boycotted the Grammy Awards in 1989 when they won the first Grammy for Best Rap Performance because the show would not be televised. . Presentation of the new award.

The Grammys’ history of limiting nominations of black artists to certain categories, such as rap and hip-hop, has also generated scrutiny, Carson writes. And there has been concern that the list of black artists the show has chosen to highlight, in his wordsa “trend of respected rap artists being overlooked in favor of those who transitioned into pop music and gained the most white fans.”

As Jay-Z noted, he boycotted the Grammys in 1999 when he won best rap album because DMX wasn’t nominated for two hit albums that had come out in 1998. He also spoke out in his and Beyoncé’s 2018 song, “Apeshit,” about your chain. of losses despite earning several nominations, he wrote, “Tell the Grammys to screw that 0 for 8 piece of shit.”

More recently, artists including Drake, Nicki Minaj and Teyana Taylor have also boycotted the Grammys in protest of the show’s treatment of black musicians. whiteboard reports.

The spotlight on Beyoncé’s snubs has only reignited scrutiny of this broader issue, highlighting how deep and systemic The under-recognition of Black artists remains insufficient.