The fifth time was the appeal for Beyoncé on the Grammy Awards.
On Sunday, following 4 earlier losses for album of the yr, the singer’s newest LP, “Cowboy Carter,” a country-tinged treatise on style’s difficult relationship with race, took dwelling the business’s high trophy. Beyoncé, 43, grew to become simply the fourth Black lady to ever win album of the yr and the primary in additional than 1 / 4 of a century, following Lauryn Hill in 1999, Whitney Houston in 1994 and Natalie Cole in 1992.
“It’s been many, a few years,” Beyoncé mentioned with a giggle in her acceptance speech, dedicating the win to the Black nation singer Linda Martell, who seems on “Cowboy Carter” to debate the complexity of style.
“Cowboy Carter” topped a crowded area that additionally included albums by André 3000, Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX, Jacob Collier, Billie Eilish, Chappell Roan and Taylor Swift, who holds the report for album of the yr wins, with 4.
The win, considered one of three on the evening, introduced Beyoncé’s profession Grammy whole to 35, probably the most by any artist, though she had beforehand received simply as soon as within the huge 4 classes of album, music and report of the yr, and finest new artist: “Single Women (Put a Ring on It)” took dwelling music of the yr in 2010.
For years, Beyoncé’s lack of a serious victory on the Grammys has dominated dialog across the present, standing in for its fraught relationship with awarding feminine musicians, particularly Black ones, in high classes. Previous achievements just like the audacious visible album “Beyoncé,” the private opus “Lemonade” and the dance-music tribute “Renaissance” had been considered front-runners earlier than shedding to albums by Beck, Adele and Harry Types. (Swift’s debut, “Fearless,” additionally defeated Beyoncé’s “I Am … Sasha Fierce” in 2010.)
On the awards final yr, Beyoncé’s husband, the rapper Jay-Z, delivered a speech criticizing the present for its snubs of his spouse and others whereas accepting a lifetime achievement award. “Even by your individual metrics it doesn’t work,” he mentioned. “We wish you to get it proper — at the least get it near proper.”
Pictured onscreen within the viewers after Beyoncé’s breakthrough win, Jay-Z and Swift shared a toast.