Last night, fans were stunned when the Grammys announced the Album Of The Year winner. While many expected that the win would go to Beyoncé for her groundbreaking album Renaissance, the award was instead given to Harry Styles for Harry’s House. Twitter erupted with fury, with many calling it an outright robbery, but there’s one person who’s not sweating it — arguably the second most invested party, Beyoncé’s husband Jay-Z.
In an interview with Tidal (a friendly outlet if there ever was one) ahead of the ceremony, Jay explained that he takes a different perspective on the importance of the award show, rather than getting his hopes up. “I remove myself from the process and hope they just get it right,” he said. “It got to the point where I was like, it’s just a marketing thing. You go, you got an album out and it could help the sales go up.”
Jay also explained why he thought Renaissance deserved the award, while admitting his bias. “Look what it’s done to the culture,” he observed. “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. From anybody, we’re just finding these joints out in the street… It’s inspiring creativity. You know how The Black Album had The Grey Album [Danger Mouse’s 2004 mashup project]? And the one with Radiohead? It was called Jaydiohead [Minty Fresh Beats’ 2009 mashup]. When it just inspires creativity, that’s an album. That has to be Album Of The Year. It has to be.”
Unfortunately, it seems the Recording Academy, by and large, disagreed (for what it’s worth, most of them are way too old for “the club” by now, right?). We’ll see how it does affect Beyoncé’s (and Styles’) sales in the future or their award show strategies, but with her world tour in front of her, Beyoncé has bigger fish to fry.
The confusion over Raitt winning out over monster songs by Adele, Beyoncé, DJ Khaled, Gayle, Styles, Kendrick Lamar, Lizzo, Steve Lacy, and Taylor Swift led to some tweeters differentiating between Song Of The Year and Record Of The Year.
BTW.. Song of the Year is about writing and composition.
Record of the Year is about the recording itself (singing, producer, engineering).
But the official website for the Grammys offered an explainer in December 2017. To sum it up, Record Of The Year “goes to the artist(s), producer(s), and engineer(s) involved in crafting the specific recording (hence ‘record’) of a song,” and Song Of The Year “goes to the songwriter(s) (hence ‘song’) of new material (not including sampled or interpolated material) of a song.”
Raitt won Song Of The Year for “Just Like That,” which she produced and wrote herself. Lizzo shared her “About Damn Time” Record Of The Year victory with producers Ricky Reed and Blake Slatkin, engineers/mixers Patrick Kehrier, Bill Malina, and Manny Marroquin, and mastering engineer Emerson Mancini.
Let’s not waste time, here: the Grammys let us all down by failing to acknowledge Beyoncé’s Renaissance as the Album Of The Year, in favor of the audio equivalent of plain oatmeal. I’m sure Harry Styles is a very nice British boy – distinctive lack of personality aside – but I, and indeed, many, many others fail to see what his album accomplished that Beyoncé’s did not.
Where Styles’ album was a fine example of a middle-of-the-road pop album, taking inspiration from the past 40 years or so of Top 40 radio (I’m putting it nicely – others have argued that it was pale imitation), Renaissance excavated 40 years of Black music history. Beyoncé sought to shine a spotlight on an oft-and-long-overlooked subculture of Black joy and rebellion.
And while the Grammys were certainly happy to make a fuss about her setting the record for most-awarded act ever, shutting her out from Album Of The Year – again – felt like a repudiation, a rejection, of not just Beyoncé’s efforts, but of the validity of the lived experience of the people her album highlighted. It’s a slap in the face.
To add insult to injury, these are the people and this is the scene that has most directly influenced pop music over the past 40 years. All of your faves? They got their swag from queer Black folks. If you ask just about any dance-pop star with a Billboard Hot 100 hit who they were inspired by, you’re going to get the same answers: Britney Spears, Madonna. Well, who inspired Madonna? I’ll wait.
Actually, no I won’t. It was that New York rave culture, where queer Black folks pioneered house and techno, ball culture, and the sampling techniques that permeate modern music today. Look at Sam Smith and Kim Petras winning Best Pop Duo/Group Performance last night. That doesn’t happen without the queer Black community opening the door, at the roots of things, laying the foundation for the branches to flourish.
And Beyoncé, who brought that underground movement to the daylight, went out of her way to acknowledge those contributors to the culture. She put Grace Jones on the album. She nodded to the dozens of collaborators and inspirations for that album in both the liner notes and on her website. As my colleague, Alex Gonzalez, pointed out on Twitter, “Both Harry and Beyoncé noticeably took inspiration from LGBTQ+ aesthetics and culture for their respective album eras… but only one of them actually thanked the queer community.”
And musically, she embraced the breadth and range of those contributions, from disco to neo-soul and everything in between. She displayed versatility and depth and grace and vulnerability and gratitude. She, to quote the kids (who are, again, only quoting Black drag queens), ate and left no crumbs.
Harry’s acceptance speech, oddly enough, inadvertently highlighted just how insultingly tone-deaf this pick really was. “This never happens to people like me,” he said. People like who, Harry? British people? Paul McCartney, Sting, and Adele all have several. Guys who were hand-picked and groomed by some of the biggest producers on the planet to be pop stars from their teens? Hey, have you ever heard of Justin Timberlake?
There is literally no category or tag that you could place on Harry Styles that would put him at a disadvantage in today’s society, let alone at an institution like the Recording Academy, which has had a 100-year history of dropping the ball on honoring Black artists, women, queer artists, or people of color in general at best, and outright racism at worst. Harry is, to the best of anyone’s knowledge, a straight, white, rich dude… the people modern society is set up to serve.
You can’t even blame this on the voting process; in a Variety feature about Academy voters, two anonymous members of this “prestigious” group openly admitted they didn’t vote for Beyoncé “because she always wins.” There was true spite behind this robbery, like the heist in Ocean’s Eleven. It wasn’t just about seeing Harry win – it was about seeing Beyoncé, a Black woman whose commitment to excellence in her craft oozes out of every fiber of her being, who has sacrificed so much to be the best at her craft, who shouldered the burden of representing an entire community in her work… lose.
That is truly heinous.
But, it’s also business as usual in America, where we Black folks are told we have to work twice as hard for half as much. If nothing else, last night’s Grammy result adds one more exhibit to the mountainous pile of evidence for this. It’s all just proof that the Grammys, like most everything else, ain’t really for us – and that’s a shame, because America, and its music, owe us so much.
The Grammys: They sure are long! Shout out to my fellow East Coasters who watched the 2023 Grammys until midnight yesterday and got 45 quality minutes of sleep before getting ready for work this morning.
Within all the length of last night’s show, a lot of things happened. Some awards went to their expected recipients, others went to nominees viewers probably forgot were even up for consideration. Some artists put on spectacular performances, others were certainly at least on stage performing music. Some people got their flowers, others would have settled for just a glimpse of a dried-out petal.
With the dust settling now, all of these events can be generally placed into three categories: winners, losers, and surprises. In fact, the highlights of these goings-on have been categorized thusly… by me… below.
Beyoncé took a slight L when she got stuck in traffic and consequently showed up late to the Grammys. That was profoundly overshadowed, though, by one of the biggest moments of Bey’s career: Renaissance won the Grammy for Best Dance/Electronic Music Album. In a vacuum, that’s kind of neat, but zoom out: That Grammy was the 32nd of Beyoncé’s career, which is the new all-time Grammy record. The ever-composed Beyoncé was clearly emotional while accepting the award, which goes to show how major the win was not just in music history, but to her personally.
Surprise: Bonnie Raitt/Samara Joy
Bonnie Raitt’s reaction to winning Song of the Year is everyone’s reaction to her winning Song of the Year #Grammyspic.twitter.com/HYcMZK00hc
Beyoncé’s big win wasn’t a shock. You know what was, though? Half of the Grammys in the “big four” categories.
The Best New Artist field was strong and the winner ended up being Samara Joy, a jazz singer who’s a relative unknown when compared to competitors like Anitta, Latto, and Wet Leg.
Then came Song Of The Year.
Up for consideration were songs by Adele, Beyoncé, Bonnie Raitt, DJ Khaled, Gayle, Harry Styles, Kendrick Lamar, Lizzo, Steve Lacy, and Taylor Swift. Looking at that list, clearly, there’s one artist that stands out, and not favorably in terms of contemporary acclaim and pop culture relevance: Raitt. Just like that, though, “Just Like That” won.
Raitt is a legend and a Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductee, but even she was left scratching her head: When her name was called, she gave an open-mouthed look around the room like she just won $100K on a gas station scratcher. That was a fair reaction: “Just Like That” currently has under half a million streams on Spotify. Last year, around 9.5 million people watched the Grammys. So, if those numbers remain similar for this year’s broadcast, that means about 20 times as many people watched “Just Like That” win the award than had actually heard the song before (and that’s being generous by assuming every Spotify listener has only played the song one time).
The Grammys aren’t supposed to be a popularity contest, but cultural relevance should have been a bigger consideration here.
Loser: In Memoriam segment
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Every year, the Recording Academy honors esteemed deceased musicians with its In Memoriam portion of the show. Also every year, they find a way to piss people off. Fans were quick to notice that artists like Gangsta Boo and Aaron Carter weren’t mentioned during the broadcast, which rubbed some viewers the wrong way.
To the Recording Academy’s credit, in a post shared ahead of the show, they shared an In Memoriam list featuring more names than made it onto the broadcast, noting that “some” of them would be included in the video tribute. Carter was on that list, but not the broadcast. They also note that the people on the list all died between January 1, 2022 and December 6, 2022; Boo died on January 1, 2023.
So, the Recording Academy technically has some plausible deniability here, but maybe policies that exclude people who should obviously be named could use some reconsidering.
Winner: Wet Leg
Wet Leg – Alternative Music Album, Alternative Music Performance
Previously, leg was dry. At the Grammys, though, leg was wet: Emerging rock favorites Wet Leg was up for five awards and they took home two of them: Best Alternative Music Performance for “Chaise Longue” and Best Alternative Music Album for Wet Leg.
Harry was one of the evening’s most-nominated artist with seven total nods. He ended the night with a strong winning percentage, too, taking home three awards, most notably picking up Album Of The Year for Harry’s House. That said…
…boy was his performance during the show dull and weird.
He started his rendition of “As It Was” with some backing dancers, all spinning slowly on a rotating platform, like the song’s music video. It was an extremely low-energy environment for a minute or so, all while the relentlessly upbeat song charged on in defiant tonal contrast. It looked as though Styles and company had the stage set up to perform an Adele ballad before switching to “As It Was” seconds before going on. Things didn’t really improve after the intro, either. Styles’ current tour has obviously gone well, as the banner he has hanging in Madison Square Garden indicates, but the watermelon sugar high appears to have worn off since his last arena show.
Winner: Viola Davis
Viola Davis has achieved EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) status. “It has been such a journey, I just EGOT!” pic.twitter.com/YYj4MMJvRg
Congratulations are in order for Viola Davis: She e-got her EGOT! She’s now one of only 18 people to ever do it and it’s thanks in part to last night’s win in the Best Audio Book, Narration, And Storytelling Recording category, for her Finding Me memoir.
Beyoncé was the evening’s leading nominee with nine total nods, but Lamar was right behind her with eight of his own. Despite getting shut out of the main categories, Lamar did well in the hip-hop categories, winning in Best Rap Performance (“The Heart Part 5”), Best Rap Song (“The Heart Part 5”), and Best Rap Album (Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers). Furthermore, he did it all while dressed like Goodwill Kid, M.A.A.D. City.
In the Best R&B Song category, Beyoncé came out on top with “Cuff It.” Another Renaissance track, “Virgo’s Groove,” was up for Best R&B Performance, and while that may have felt like an obvious pick there, Muni Long actually pulled off the upset with “Hrs & Hrs.”
That’s not to say, of course, that Long’s win (her first Grammy victory) is inexcusable. “Hrs & Hrs” is an accomplished track, as it was only the second song by an independent artist to top the Billboard Hot R&B Songs chart, it’s certified platinum, and it achieved a No. 16 peak on the Hot 100. Beating Beyoncé for a Grammy is a tall mountain to scale, so congrats to Long!
Winner: 50th Anniversary Of Hip-Hop Tribute Performance
The Recording Academy put a major focus on honoring hip-hop in 2023, since this year marks the half-century anniversary of the genre’s inception. They went all out with a gargantuan 10-minute performance that spanned eras, featuring stage time from Grandmaster Flash, Rakim, RUN-DMC, Salt-N-Pepa, Future, GloRilla, Lil Baby, Busta Rhymes, De La Soul, Missy Elliott, Method Man, Nelly, and Too Short, among others. If you’re looking for a hip-hop history lesson, the setlist is a terrific starting point.
To her name, Brandi Carlile has racked up 24 Grammy nominations in her lifetime. She’s usually firmly in the Americana and country categories, but this year, she earned her first rock nominations. She actually dominated on that front, with “Broken Horses” winning Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance. While on the surface, Carlile getting rock Grammys might read as off, she performed the track during the broadcast and it was very clearly a rock song, and a pretty good one, too.
Last night, a lot of songs did, but “God Did” was not among them. The DJ Khaled, Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, John Legend, and Fridayy song was nominated for Song Of The Year, Best Rap Performance, and Best Rap Song. It won none of those awards.
Then, Khaled and company had to close the show with a performance of the song, which featured Khaled spouting his classic substance-free motivational nuggets. His loud claims of “we the best” or whatever while actual musicians were performing around him fell especially flat, since the Recording Academy just finished declaring on national television that he is in fact not the best.
Loser: Benny Blanco
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Benny Blanco wore that to the 2023 Grammy Awards.
Find the full list of this year’s Grammy nominees and winners here.
Megan Fox arrived at Clive Davis’ annual pre-Grammys gala Saturday with a pink wrist brace. She revealed on Instagram that she had recently suffered a broken wrist and a concussion. Her fiancé, Machine Gun Kelly, was up for Best Rock Album with his project, Mainstream Sellout. Other celebrities in attendance at the party included Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, Jennifer Hudson, Demi Lovato, as well as Miranda Lambert, and more.
Fox explained the injuries she sustained without going into detail about how they happened on her Instagram Story. She wrote in a post: “off the plane with a broken wrist and a concussion straight to a Grammys party.”
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – FEBRUARY 04: (L-R) Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly attend the Pre-GRAMMY Gala & GRAMMY Salute to Industry Icons Honoring Julie Greenwald and Craig Kallman on February 04, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
Kelly’s Mainstream Sellout later ended up losing out to Patient Number 9 by Ozzy Osbourne. Other nominees included Idles, The Black Keys, and more. Regardless, Kelly explained that he was just happy to be nominated in a statement on his social media pages, earlier in the weekend. Mainstream Sellout released back in March 2022 and debuted atop the US Billboard 200 albums chart while moving 93,000 album equivalent units.
“Going into tomorrow, I just want to express gratitude. No matter what the outcome is, no matter if we win the Grammy, I am so happy to have been on journey exactly as how it has turned out,” the artist said in a video from his Instagram Story. “I’m grateful for you. I’m grateful for the family I’ve gained, friends, the shows, the laughs, the cries, all of that shit. It helped me push to be here to experience a moment like this. I mean we already won. We already won.”
Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly first met while filming Midnight in the Switchgrass in May 2020. They started dating shortly afterward. Fox had recently split with Brian Austin Green. Kelly later proposed to Fox in January 2022. They have yet to make their wedding plans public.
Meanwhile, according to TMZ’s sources, it was not Offset who started the fight, which makes sense considering the comments Quavo and Takeoff made over the past year regarding his falling out with the group. While Quavo and Takeoff spoke about “disloyalty,” it seemed that Offset had angered them in some way, leading to their making a joint album without him. Fans have speculated that it was Offset suing their label, Quality Control Music, that set things off; others believe that there was a romantic tryst between Offset and Saweetie, who was previously dating Quavo.
Whatever the reason, many fans were disappointed that the two remaining Migos were unable to reconcile their differences for the tribute. However, it looks like the tribute provided another wedge between them, making a Migos reunion less likely than ever.
Smith is not banned from attending the Grammys, though, and people noticed his absence on Sunday night, February 5. The 2023 Grammys featured a medley performance celebrating hip-hop’s 50th anniversary. The segment was directed and produced by Questlove, introduced by LL Cool J, and narrated by Black Thought.
Questlove told Entertainment Tonightthat Smith was “99.4 percent” committed to performing, “but they started shooting Bad Boys 4 this week, so he couldn’t make rehearsals.” Questlove added, “He wanted to do it.”
For those keeping score at home, Questlove apparently doesn’t hold grudges. Smith’s slap occurred as Rock was presenting the Oscar for Best Documentary. The award went to Questlove for Summer Of Soul, and Smith later apologized to Questlove for overshadowing his first Academy Award.
Smith posted a video last July apologizing not only to Questlove but to Rock, Rock’s mother, Rock’s entire family, his own family, and more.
“It really breaks my heart to have stolen and tarnished your moment,” Smith said to his “fellow nominees” in the video. “I can still see Questlove’s eyes. It happened on Questlove’s award, and you know, it’s like, ‘I’m sorry’ really isn’t sufficient.”
Watch the 50-year hip-hop anniversary tribute below.
50-year anniversary of hip-hop performance at the #GRAMMYs by some of the greats including RunDMC, LL Cool J, Salt N Peppa, Ice T, Queen Latifah, Wu-Tang, Big Boi, Busta Rhymes, Missy Elliott, Nelly, Too Short, GloRilla, The Roots, and more… pic.twitter.com/HmGB0bvGZX
Quavo and Offset are reportedly still on bad terms. According to TMZ, the former Migos groupmates got into a physical altercation backstage at the Grammys. Apparently, it all happened right before Quavo hit the stage to perform “Without You” in honor of Takeoff during the “In Memoriam” part of the show. The two allegedly got into a physical fight that required them to be pulled apart.
According to reports, the Grammys invited Offset to join Quavo on stage during the tribute to Takeoff. However, Quavo refused to allow him on stage and be a part of the moment. The “MESSY” rapper then prevented Offset from emerging on the stage during the segment and shortly after, they allegedly squared off. Neither Quavo nor Offset have publicly confirmed whether this altercation occurred. However, TMZ’s “Offset sources” allege Quavo began the fight.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 22: Takeoff, Offset and Quavo of Migos attend A Conversation with Migos at The GRAMMY Museum on September 22, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Rebecca Sapp/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
Fans expressed disappointment that Offset didn’t join Quavo on stage. However, it isn’t necessarily surprising. Quavo wrote “Without You” specifically for Takeoff, while neither Qua’ or ‘Set have necessarily put aside their differences publicly. However, Offset stated during his speech at Takeoff’s funeral that he wanted to focus on brotherhood and family.
At the time of Takeoff’s death, Offset was already on the outs with his group mates. He pursued his solo career while Quavo and Takeoff delivered their joint project, Only Built For Infinity Links. There have been a number of rumors surrounding why they haven’t been on good terms, including allegations that Offset and Saweetie were involved in some sort of entanglement.
Besides his altercation with Quavo, Offset also got into an online spat with J. Prince. The Rap-A-Lot CEO claimed Offset wasn’t around for Takeoff when he was alive, prompting a scathing response from the “Ric Flair Drip” artist.
“I don’t know what the f*ck y’all got going on. You speaking on my real brother. How dare one of y’all n***as speak on me and Take relationship, n***a? I don’t know you n***as from a can of paint,” he said. “Nobody said nothing but you n***as. Who y’all n***as think y’all n***as is? John Gotti, n***a? Ain’t nobody going for none of that. I ain’t standin’ for none of that sh*t y’all n***as talkin’ about either.”
We will continue to keep you posted on any more news surrounding Offset and Quavo’s alleged altercation at the Grammys.
Chris Brown has a bone to pick with Robert Glasper, who took home the Best R&B Album Of The Year award at the Grammys. Following the award ceremony, Chris Brown aired out his frustrations at Glasper and the Grammys in a string of posts on social media. It appeared that Chris Brown felt as though Breezy was a shoo-in for the category. So when the Recording Academy called Glasper to the stage to accept the award for Best R&B Album for Black Radio III, the “Call Me Every Day” artist threw a tantrum online.
“Bro who the f*ck is this?” Chris wrote alongside a screenshot of Google results for Robert Glasper. “Y’all playing,” he added with several laughing emojis, “who da fuck is this.” His subsequent post continued to question Glasper’s merits. “Ima keep kicking yall ass! Respectfully,” he added. Then, he began to mock Glasper for his musicianship. “I gotta get my skills up.. Ima start playing the harmonica,” he wrote. Afterward, he shared a meme of himself with a harmonica photoshopped into his hand. “New level unlocked,” the post read, “Harmonica Breezy.”
Chris’ commentary led to immediate backlash. Though some fans felt as though Breezy got robbed, others felt as though the singer revealed a lack of musical knowledge. “Chris Brown not knowing who Robert Glasper is… is the reason all of Chris Brown songs sound the same,” one person tweeted. Another wrote, “Chris Brown has 20 nominations and 1 win. He taking out his frustrations on Robert Glasper but them 19 Ls are the real enemy.”
Chris Brown not knowing who Robert Glasper is… is the reason all of Chris Brown songs sound the same
Even if Chris Brown isn’t familiar with Robert Glasper, the famed 44-year-old Houston native has landed undoubtedly on his playlist at some point. Glasper has been active for 20 years and worked alongside some of the greatest artists of our time. He teamed up with Kendrick Lamar on “These Walls” off of To Pimp A Butterfly. However, he also worked alongside artists like Mac Miller, Jill Scott, Anderson .Paak and more in recent times. Black Radio III included collabs alongside Killer Mike, Big K.R.I.T., Q-Tip, H.E.R, Musiq Soulchild, Jennifer Hudson, India.Arie, Ty Dolla $ign, and more.
While Chris Brown left empty-handed, he was undoubtedly up against some tough competition. Along with Breezy and Black Radio III, the R&B Album Of The Year category was rounded out with Mary J. Blige’s Good Morning Gorgeous (Deluxe), Lucky Daye’s Candydrip, and PJ Morton’s Watch The Sun.
– TikTok – theaccidentalcougar 
GRAMMYs 
[Watch]: Quavo perform “WITHOUT YOU” tribute to Takeoff at the 
(@AccraGuyy)