From the moment the Grammy nominations were announced last month, two big questions took hold, both centered on Beyoncé Knowles-Carter. First: Would she finally get over the Album of the Year hump by winning for her dance-music masterpiece, Renaissance? And second: Would she become the most decorated artist in the ceremony’s history, surpassing Georg Solti’s 31 wins? But as Sunday’s show began and Beyoncé won Best R&B Song for “Cuff It” to tie the Hungarian conductor’s record, a curious detail emerged: Beyoncé hadn’t yet arrived. In her place, Renaissance collaborator Nile Rodgers accepted the statue. But while it’s always a pleasure to see the legendary producer and his spectacular Kangol get some run, a third question quickly took hold. In fact, here’s Lizzo asking it:
Where is Beyoncé? Sure, her husband, Jay-Z, was seated front and center, but as of 8:30 p.m. ET, the most anticipated guest of the evening had yet to arrive. Would she even bother to show? And if she didn’t, what did that say about the entire proceedings?
Of course, it turned out Beyoncé would eventually honor the Grammys with her lateness. A little over an hour into the ceremony, she showed up. (No excuses were offered, not that we needed them from her.) She got there just in time to collect her record-setting statue, this one for Best Dance/Electronic Music Album. As James Corden opened the red envelope and signaled that history was being made, Beyoncé rose and began to walk to the stage, where she tearfully thanked God and her parents amid the backdrop of Renaissance’s striking album cover, a portrait of her riding a crystal horse. It’s easy to find symbolism in that image—Beyoncé Knowles, a girl who rose from her humble Texas beginnings to become one of the most famous musicians on the planet, had fully tamed the industry. Say what you will about the actual importance of the Grammys, but host Trevor Noah wasn’t wrong when he said a few minutes later that Beyoncé has become the GOAT, at least when we discuss pop stars operating at this level.
The problem is, however, this would be the last time Beyoncé’s name was called on Sunday evening. The Grammys answered the other big Bey Question—of whether she would finally win Album of the Year—with a resounding no. That honor went to Harry Styles for his pleasant, if a little flaccid, Harry’s House. In the grand scheme of Grammy atrocities, this isn’t exactly O Brother, Where Art Thou? beating out Stankonia (or even late-period Beck beating out Beyoncé in 2015) but a minor atrocity is still an atrocity. In snubbing Renaissance for a relatively staid affair, the Recording Academy snubbed one of the more ambitious major-label albums in recent years—a mélange of dance music that pays tribute to the genre’s queer and Black roots while pushing it forward. It also marks the fourth time in four nominations that Beyoncé has come up short for AOTY, each loss more perplexing than the last. To put it simply, the Grammys screwed up again. So while Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. may imagine a different kind of headline coming out of the ceremony, the main ones will focus on why the betting favorite and most deserving nominee didn’t win the biggest award.
The Harry’s House win was not the biggest head-scratcher of the night. That goes to Bonnie Raitt’s victory in the Song of the Year category, which felt more sentimental than earned. But it does loom large over the rest of the ceremony, which admittedly was not completely terrible. Thanks to the changes the Academy made to the voting process, the down-ballot genre categories produced few surprises. Kendrick Lamar, Bad Bunny, and Adele won the categories you’d expect them to, and Jack Harlow lost just like you’d hoped he would. (Nine years after the most infamous text in Grammys history, the Academy mercifully decided to Mackleless.) And in awarding Sam Smith and Kim Petras for Best Pop Duo or Group Performance, the Grammys made history: Petras became the first openly transgender woman to win at the ceremony. (She also shouted out Sophie in her touching acceptance speech; this was not only an important moment, it was an emotional one.)
Also: the performances! After being introduced by Madonna, Smith and Petras put on a, umm, provocative rendition of “Unholy.” Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder (and, improbably, Chris Stapleton) put on a riveting tribute to Motown. And in one of the most heart-wrenching moments in the show’s history, Quavo performed his tribute to Takeoff, his nephew and rhyme partner who was tragically killed in front of him this past fall. But the set piece of the evening came from the Questlove-curated tribute to hip-hop for the genre’s 50th anniversary, which gathered everyone from Melle Mel to Scarface to Jadakiss and Styles P to Salt-N-Pepa to GloRilla. (The showstopper naturally came in the form of tongue-twisting Busta Rhymes, who at age 50 is every bit as potent as he was when he dungeon-dragon’d his way onto “Scenario.”) Combined with an honorary award for Dr. Dre just a few minutes beforehand, the extended cypher felt like a landmark moment for a ceremony that has long had a rocky history with hip-hop, beginning when the winners of its first-ever rap award boycotted the show in 1989. (Notably, one half of that duo—DJ Jazzy Jeff—helped anchor Sunday’s tribute.)
The medley came about three-quarters of the way into the evening, but it wouldn’t be the last major rap highlight of the night. That came in the form of the show-closing performance of DJ Khaled’s “God Did,” which features John Legend, Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, and the most talked-about Jay-Z verse in years. One imagines the Recording Academy plotting what it thought would be the perfect end to the evening: a Beyoncé Album of the Year victory followed by a capstone performance by her husband. Except, it ended up like those weird pandemic Oscars, when the organizers teed up the show to conclude with a posthumous Chadwick Boseman victory for Best Actor, only to watch a long-shot Anthony Hopkins win. Styles’s win marked a flat moment—and a missed opportunity—on a night when it seemed like the Grammys were finally getting it right.
So, the Grammys answered both the Big Beyoncé Questions, just in seemingly contradictory ways. With her three genre-category wins on Sunday, she now has more statues than anyone else who’s ever played a note of music, but she’s still missing an AOTY win. By denying her again, the Recording Academy raised a new question: How can one artist—one who’s set the pace for popular music for most of the 21st century—be both the most decorated individual in the ceremony’s history and a four-time also-ran in the most prestigious category? Or more simply: How can one be both the GOAT and an afterthought? It makes sense that she’d be late for a show like this when it always seems to end up like this. Perhaps Beyoncé should be the one asking questions from now. First one: Should she even bother to show up next time?
