beyonce wins aoty
05/02/2025 - beyonce wins aoty at the 2025 grammy’s
Source: GETTY IMAGES // KEVIN WINTER.
Words By Jord Hailwood
As Beyonce said herself, “After many years”, she has finally been given her flowers and won ‘Album of the Year’ at the 2025 Grammys for her latest album, Cowboy Carter.
It goes without saying in this current time, it’s not uncommon to not be up to scratch with every artist as there is an astounding amount of available music. Despite this, Beyonce has been a household name for the last three decades. Beyonce is arguably referred to as one of, if not the most influential, artist of the twenty-first century. From shifting the official release day of new music to dropping albums with no pre-warning whilst continuing to switch genres within her music, Beyonce is very deserving of all her achievements.
Over the last decade, publications and numerous collections of other artists and music experts have criticised the Recording Academy for not awarding Beyonce with Album of the Year. Despite this, she is the most awarded Grammy artist of all time.
Aside from her ongoing success, she has had less fortune in winning prominent categories such as Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Album of the Year. Beyonce’s Grammy Awards are more associated with terms such as ‘Urban’ or ‘R&B’. Arguably, this suggests how Beyonce’s wins are racialised and have placed her in a box. It's been debated for the entirety of her career, especially in more recent years, that she is not being placed in the same respectable positions as her white counterparts.
There has been a lot of debate as to whether or not Beyonce deserved to win Album of the Year for Cowboy Carter. Multiple country artists and fans have argued she is undeserving of the win as Country is not her main music genre. The Houston-born singer has been criticised, with people disputing that she won the award because of her international stardom and not because her album demonstrated the genre successfully. She has lost in this category a total of four times for her albums “I Am Sasha Fierce”, “Beyonce”, “Lemonade” and “Renaissance”, losing to Taylor Swift, Beck, Adele and Harry Styles.
In my own opinion, I believe Beyonce’s best project is Lemonade. Lemonade took us on a journey and allowed us to see a part of Beyonce that she does not always share. With the album focusing on her husband, Jay-Z’s alleged affair and conversations surrounding black feminism and the state of political blackness within America, I do think Lemonade is the most deserving ‘Album of the Year’ from Beyonce’s catalogue. However, I acknowledge that Cowboy Carter is also deserving.
Beyonce has an undeniable cultural impact. The prominence and the popularity of Cowboy Carter have increased listenership for the genre overall, it also sparked discourse on the boundaries of country music with its roots in black music and has allowed black country artists to be at the forefront of cultural conversations.
“I’d like to thank and acknowledge and praise all the firefighters for keeping us safe. I just feel very full and very honoured”, Beyonce said during her acceptance speech. She also took home Sunday night the award for Best Country Album and Best Country Duo/Group Performance for ‘II Most Wanted’ featuring Miley Cyrus. Cowboy Carter is the second instalment of Beyonce’s three-part musical invention. The purpose of this project is to reclaim genres that originated from black culture, the first being Renaissance, then Cowboy Carter and the third album - TBC.
Beyonce has set the standard, shaped the culture and redefined art. Now, the recognition has finally caught up. This award is more than a trophy; it’s about reclaiming what has been taken, whitewashed and shut the black community out for far too long.
Congratulations Beyonce - Album of the Year Winner!
