Sophia Michaels
The 65th Grammys was collaborative, witty, tear-jerking, and surprisingly touching for a music awards show often defined by its inability to get with the times — which is why Beyonce’s insulting snub for Album of the Year felt all the more shocking and like an indictment on the Recording Academy itself. Why is music’s biggest night so averse to giving Black women their due?
Renaissance, Beyoncé’s seventh album, was a seductive club banger with heady lyricism and deep tributes to the queer community. In a Rolling Stone review, writer Mankaprr Conteh wrote that the album “traverses eras of dance music to conjure the superhuman confidence and deeply human connection of a night out. The thematic triumph of the auteur’s seventh album is this union of the extraordinary and the earthly across it, a duality that lives on the dancefloors Renaissance was inspired by—and in all of us,” she added. “Renaissance channels the energy and the conceit of the club into a demonstration of self-love.”
On a technical level, Renaissance succeeded as both a dance classic and an iconic piece of music history. That much was evident when Beyoncé took home the award for Best Dance/Electronic Music Album, made history as the most Grammy award-winning artist of all time, and still found time to thank the queer community for inventing the genre. But even with her wins during the ceremony, Beyoncé’s lack of recognition for Album of the Year proves that the Recording Academy still lacks a fundamental understanding of the artists that push it to better.
We’ve been here before. Beyoncé has stood in a cheering crowd while Beck (2015), Adele (2017), and now Harry Styles (2023) took an award that she had earned. But on a night when Black artists’ contribution to music history was highlighted so well, Beyoncé’s snub feels especially infuriating. Black artists have defined every genre of music. But music’s biggest night has defined itself by its refusal to award Black artistry the praise it is due. Beyoncé deserved better. We all did.
