Last Sunday, during the 2017 Grammy Awards, Adele made one of the most important statements of the night. With grace, humility, and awareness, she said that the award she won for Album of the Year rightfully belonged to Beyoncé.
As soon as I heard that Adele swept the Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Album of the Year categories instead of Beyoncé, I thought, “Are you kidding me?” If we were comparing Lemonade with Adele’s previous album 21, it would have been a toss-up for me -- I would not be able to discern which album is better. In respect to the times each album was released, both transcended the norms imposed by American society and the music industry. Both fought the status quo in their own ways, through artistic implementation and careful execution. But, despite its commercial success, 25 could not live up to the success of 21; critics agreed by giving the album mostly mixed reviews. Meanwhile, Lemonade was one of the most, if not the most, critically acclaimed albums of the year.
Lemonade was groundbreaking. It shifted paradigms between genres and within the music itself. While Beyoncé remains grounded to her pop and electro-R&B roots, she experiments with brief forays into rock, country, blues, Americana, and gospel. Through divine symbolism and historical allusion, Beyoncé successfully divulges how it feels to be a black woman in the United States and across the world. 25 was as cinematic and heart-wrenching as her fans would have hoped, but unlike 25, Lemonade took risks with its concept and texture.
Beyoncé attempted a powerful story arc and succeeded, both in song and film. Her music visual for “Formation” was evocatively political; the song itself empowered people of her race and gender to rise up and prove the world wrong. The video provided a social commentary on society’s treatment of African-Americans, tackling issues such as police brutality, the former Bush administration’s failure to address the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, and more. Top all of this with an accompanying Emmy-nominated short film and you have a work so much more substantial than, as USA Today puts it, “a tidy adult contemporary album.” Lemonade was bold and relevant.
Neither Beyoncé nor Adele could be credited as the sole producers or songwriters on their respective albums. Beyoncé wrote and produced every single song on her album with a little help, just like Adele did on 25. So, the critique that “Adele writes her own songs and Beyoncé doesn’t” does not hold any water at all -- Beyoncé was listed as the album’s executive writer and producer. It isn’t a question of talent -- if it were, then the Recording Academy would not have nominated Beyoncé for a whopping 9 award categories this year, making her the most Grammy-nominated female artist of all time. So, what is it?
Perhaps, the Academy decided to overlook Beyoncé’s Lemonade because the topic of black womanhood was too political and progressive.
Recording Academy voters tend to sway towards “traditional” (usually white) artists like Adele because they mostly belong to the aging white “baby boomer” demographic. They may sometimes be outnumbered by a younger, more racially diverse crowd, but, as inferred by The Independent, they “tend to vote as a bloc and promote the sorts of things that appeal to their ears.”
As a result, artists of color, particularly black artists whose music often reflect the current state of society and politics, have been constantly sidelined to make way for familiar, yet innocuous white artists who specialize in traditional genres like adult contemporary or pop. While the music industry would not thrive without its colored visionaries, only three black women (Lauryn Hill, Natalie Cole, and Whitney Houston) have won Album of the Year since the foundation of the Academy. Though the Academy has tried to promote diversity and inclusion by establishing the Best Urban Contemporary Album award in 2013, the award has only served to shut out artists of color from the main, more prestigious awards like Album of the Year.
For this reason, Frank Ocean did not submit his albums Endless and Blonde for consideration this year, claiming that the Academy “doesn’t seem to be representing very well for people who come from where I come from.” He also cites the time the Academy handed Macklemore all the awards in the Rap categories over Kendrick Lamar, the time Beck won Album of the Year against Beyoncé for his album Morning Phase, and the time Taylor Swift’s 1989 won Album of the Year against Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly as examples. (For the record, Metacritic awarded To Pimp A Butterfly a score of 96, signifying universal acclaim from critics. 1989 was assigned a score of 76, or “generally positive reviews.” To Pimp A Butterfly will also be archived at Harvard University’s library for its social and cultural impact, as well as its unprecedented success as a hip-hop record.)
I want to thank Adele for looking beyond her self-interest and using her platform to call out unfairness when she sees it. After dedicating her Album of the Year acceptance speech to Beyoncé, Adele said backstage, “What the f*** does [Beyoncé] have to do to win Album of the Year?” Good question. Looking at Beyoncé’s teary eyes during Adele’s speech, it is clear that Beyoncé's fight for representation isn’t over yet. Because this album meant so much more to people than just a small golden statue.
