Beyoncé won Best Dance/Electronic Music Album with Renaissance at the 2023 Grammys on February 5. It marked 32nd career Grammy, making her the winningest artist of all time. That felt inevitable.
The surprise came at the end of the night when Harry Styles won Album Of The Year, and many were left flabbergasted that Renaissance became the latest album of Beyoncé’s four albums to be snubbed by the Recording Academy for Album Of The Year.
Jay-Z downplayed the snub, but leave it to Spike Lee to lay it all out there.
“I’m not the male president of the Beyhive, but I love and support Beyoncé,” Lee said in a wide-ranging interview with The Guardian. “Her album is amazing. I know she’s won multiple Grammys, but four times nominated for Album Of The Year, and she’s lost every time? No disrespect to those artists like Adele or Harry Styles who won. It’s not their fault, but that’s some straight-up bullsh*t.”
The transcendent filmmaker continued, “There’s a history of great Black artists who come up for these awards and don’t win. We all know their work is great because art speaks for itself. But then, it always comes down to this tricky territory of validation. Do Black artists say: ‘F*ck it,’ or seek white validation and chase awards? I just want to give a shoutout to my sister Beyoncé. We know what the deal is. It’s straight-up shenanigans, skulduggery, subterfuge. Or as the British say: It’s some poppycock!”
The Grammys are in Beyoncé’s rearview. She’s preparing to start her Renaissance World Tour this May in Sweden. The intensely sought-after tour will hit North America this summer, beginning in Toronto on July 8 and finishing in New Orleans on September 27.
Source: News