It is 12:00 am on July 29, 2022, and Beyoncé just dropped her highly-anticipated album for the first time in six years, RENAISSANCE. This album became the talk of the town for days, and went on to be widely critically acclaimed. Numerous media outlets placed the album at number one when discussing the top albums of 2022.
Then comes November 15, 2022, the day nominations for the 2023 Grammy Awards are announced. The BeyHive was filled with gratefulness and happiness as RENAISSANCE, as well as individual songs from the album, received nine nominations-one being Album of the Year.
And then finally, it’s showtime. On Grammys night, which just occurred on February 5, Beyoncé would go on to win four awards out of the nine she was nominated for. The very end of the ceremony comes, and it’s time to announce the winner for Album of the Year. The BeyHive is on the edge of their seats, waiting to hear RENAISSANCE be announced as the winner. Instead, disappointment ensues as Harry’s House by Harry Styles wins Album Of The Year.
Now, Harry Styles is a great artist. And Harry’s House truly is a great album and an impactful, popular one in 2022. But RENAISSANCE is revolutionary and that is why it deserved to win Album Of The Year. First off, it brought back dance and house music. Beyoncé’s new album shows how fun it is to dance along and groove with house music. This was also something outside of the box for Beyoncé to do as she usually dives into ballads, R&B, hip-hop, and pop in her music. Secondly, it honored the genre’s Black and queer roots. This surely helped society know how Black queer and transgender people have been very influential in our pop culture. When Beyoncé gave her thank you speech for Best Dance/Electronic Album, she thanked the queer community for inventing the genre. Third, the album is filled with a lot of affirmative lyrics. For example, “I’m too classy to be touched / I pay them all in dust” from “Alien Superstar” just gives off the energy of not allowing negativity to touch you.
The Recording Academy’s ignorance of these three critical aspects of RENAISSANCE is what makes this snub very upsetting. Jay-Z has even given out a statement that truly encapsulates why RENAISSANCE truly deserved to win Album Of The Year: “Look what it’s done to the culture. Look how the energy of the world moved. They play her whole album in the club. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that. The whole entire joint — like, everything?! Every remix is amazing. Everyone’s inspired. It has inspired the world. Every remix is better than the other one. It’s inspiring creativity. When it just inspires creativity, that’s an album. That has to be album of the year. It has to be.” This statement right here truly shows just how revolutionary RENAISSANCE is.
Thankfully, though, Beyoncé got her credit in other areas where it was due. She became the most Grammy-awarded artist of all time. She also became the first Black woman to win Best Dance/Electronic Album. It is very memorable for a Black person to be recognized as someone who contributed to the genre, especially one that many people don’t connect with Black culture, and especially when Black people originally created the genre of dance music. This also served as the perfect moment to spotlight how this genre wouldn’t have come to be if it weren’t for the queer community. Beyoncé has lost Album of the Year five times. Race truly plays a factor in this as Beyoncé has consistently lost this award to white artists. This is a repeat of what happened to Michael Jackson. In 1984, he was nominated in numerous categories and won a majority of them. But years after, The Recording Academy rarely gave him his flowers. Additionally, RENAISSANCE was highly and heavily predicted to win Album of the Year. So this category is what Beyoncé truly deserved. To The Recording Academy, please stop disrespecting Black artists, especially Beyoncé, one of the most powerful and revolutionary entertainers of our time.