Jay-Z mentioned in his remarks that Beyoncé has won 32 Grammy Awards, but she has never taken home the prestigious album of the year award

Jay-Z brought attention to an unexpectedly little flaw in the Recording Academy’s previous voting history at Sunday night’s Grammy Awards. Beyoncé has won more Grammy Awards than any other artist throughout the course of her incredible career, yet she has never won the most important award of them all: album of the year. Jay-Z commented, “Even by your own metrics, that doesn’t work,” when accepting the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award. “Remember that. album of the year, no matter how many Grammys it won. That is ineffective.

Beyoncé did not overtly reply to her husband’s remarks as the camera swung to her, but the crowd at LA’s Crypto.com Arena cheered her on. @MJFINESSELOVER said on X: “Jay-Z is absolutely right. It is terrible that Beyoncé has never won album of the year.” A another user, spicebae, wrote: “We just need to go ahead and applaud Jay-Z for saying what everyone’s been thinking about the nominations and Beyoncé never winning album of the year.”

When you consider that Beyoncé has been nominated for album of the year five times, the most recent being in 2010 for I Am… Sasha Fierce and again the following year as a featured artist on Lady Gaga’s The Fame Monster, this persistent rejection seems even more outrageous. Beyoncé may have earned just rewards for each of her next three nominations in this category: the genre-bending concept album Lemonade in 2017, the agenda-setting feminist manifesto Beyoncé in 2015, and the cerebral dance epic Renaissance in 2023.

During his statement, Jay-Z, shown on stage with Blue Ivy Carter, questioned why Beyoncé hadn’t won album of the year at the Grammy Awards (Credit: Getty Images).

In particular, Lemonade seemed to be a lock to win album of the year. It was both musically brilliant and culturally relevant as it examined the emotional effects of Jay-Z’s reported infidelity through the lenses of generational anguish and racial inequity. Beyoncé skillfully incorporated a variety of genres, including reggae, rock, hip-hop, soul, funk, country, and electronica, into her 12 compositions. She also created an amazing visual album to go along with it. “I can’t possibly accept this award,” the British singer remarked in her acceptance speech after Adele, who won instead that year for her popular third album 25, triumphed. And I’m really appreciative, courteous, and humbled. But Beyoncé is the artist I’ve always loved. And the Lemonade album is simply so momentous in my opinion.”

Something about Beyoncé never winning album of the year simply doesn’t stack up, as Jay-Z noted.

Even if it is never constructive or fair to draw comparisons between female musicians, it cannot be avoided that Jay-Z made his remarks the same evening that Taylor Swift won record of the year for the fourth time. Her rather subdued tenth studio album, Midnights, triumphed amid fierce opposition from Lana Del Rey, Olivia Rodrigo, and SZA, among others. Since 2000, a number of other female musicians have taken home the album of the year award, including Adele twice, Kacey Musgraves, Billie Eilish, Alison Krauss (now with Robert Plant), Norah Jones, and Dixie Chicks (now named The Chicks). However, as @MJFINESSELOVER pointed out in her widely shared tweet, Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill won in 1999, marking the last time a black woman prevailed in this category.

Is Beyoncé’s exclusion due to some kind of racial bias? The fact that she has only won one of her thirty-two Grammy Awards in the so-called “big four” categories—album of the year, record of the year, song of the year, and best new artist—feels uncomfortably inadequate. 2010 saw Beyoncé’s only big four victory when her song “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” won song of the year.

Her other victories have come in genre competitions, where she set a record five times for best R&B song. Any Grammy victory is a testament to the industry’s broad recognition, but as Jay-Z noted, there’s a strange contradiction in Beyoncé’s record of never winning album of the year. She has produced music that has characterized the genres she has worked in, from dance/electronica to rap and R&B, particularly in the previous ten years. However, she has also released records that crossed genre boundaries and become icons of popular culture. She deserves to win album of the year because of this. Fortunately, her inventiveness is still unwavering, so the Grammys should make many more efforts to make up for this mistake in the future.