At the 66th Annual Grammy Awards on Sunday night, Taylor Swift made history by winning Album of the Year for a record fourth time.
While most of the country-turned-pop superstar's musical peers and fans congratulated her, Jay-Z did not.
Instead, as he did last year when "Renaissance" missed out on Album of the Year, he took the chance to make it about Beyoncé.
"She has more Grammys than everyone and never won Album of the Year!” Jay said of his wife as he collected the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award.
“We want y’all to get it right,” he proclaimed.
Now, if anybody is qualified to give their opinion on music – it's Jay-Z. One of the greatest rappers of all time, he's been making hits for almost 30 years.
However, while his comments about "Renaissance" last year may have been somewhat justified, for this year's tirade, there is no excuse.
Firstly, Beyoncé didn't even release an album that qualified for a nomination in this year's Album of the Year category. So why is Jay moaning now?
Secondly, to get up on stage and make his point to not only the crowd, but the millions of others watching at home, is disrespectful. His behavior reeks of Kanye West at the 2009 VMAs, where he interrupted Swift to claim Beyoncé should have won the award for Best Video.
Jay is entitled to dislike Swift's music, but he's not entitled to publicly discredit her achievements.
Thirdly, and most importantly, Jay's rant about Bey never winning Album of the Year was dripping in racial undertones.
Addressing other black artists in his speech on Sunday, Jay said: “Some of you may get robbed. Some of you don’t belong in the category."
He went on to reference Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff boycotting of the 1989 Grammys because the rap category was not televised at the time, as well as the 1998 Awards, when DMX wasn't nominated for Album of the Year despite having released two No. 1 projects.
“Forget the Grammys,” Jay said. “You have to keep showing up until they give you all those accolades you feel you deserve."
In the past, the Recording Academy has no doubt made missteps in recognizing black artists.
In recent years, however, that has not been the case.
It was only in 2022 that Jon Batiste won Album of the Year, while four of the last seven winners of Song of the Year – Anderson Paak., Bruno Mars, H.E.R., and Childish Gambino – have also been black.
This year, the Grammys also finally began recognizing African artists in their own category, introducing the award for Best African Music Performance, which was won by Tyla for her hit song "Water."
Most relative to Jay's point, however, is that Beyoncé is the most decorated artist in Grammys history with 32 awards.
As such, his insinuation that the Academy is not awarding her Album of the Year (which is voted for by her peers, by the way) because of the color of her skin is not only false, but perpetuating a damaging narrative based out of his own bias, not reality.
Could it be that Beyoncé, despite her loyal group of fans and devoted husband arguing otherwise, has simply never made a project worthy of the prize?
Surely not...
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