Beyoncé, the most successful artist at the Grammys, was still ‘snubbed’; her husband, fans, and Kanye West never let us forget this

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Pop is considered by many ‘true music listeners’ to be the scourge of the Earth, but ‘Fearless’ by Taylor was truly one of the best sophomore albums of that particular genre at that time. Beck pushed the letter with Morning Phase, and even if it was no ‘The Wall’, it got better reviews and ratings than Beyoncé’s ‘I Am…Sasha Fierce’. ’25’ was Adele’s magnum opus, and ‘Hello’, despite not being a catchy upbeat party song (like so many others during the time), became the song of the year. People win and people lose at awards; that’s how it works, but hijacking the night to complain about how you didn’t get the gold star at school is absurd. Kanye West, for one, should have been banned from music award shows after he pulled that stunt with Taylor.

For context, Taylor won the Best Female Video award at the 2009 MTV Music Video Awards. When the young artist made her way to the stage, she was interrupted by boy-wonder Kanye, who said, “Yo Taylor, I am really happy for you, and I am going to let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time.” He shrugged his shoulders and gave the mic back to a confused and dazed Taylor, who looked unnecessarily guilty for actually winning something she deserved. Now, that was a problematic thing to do; what’s more problematic is that he almost did this again when Beck won his Grammy for ‘Morning Phase’. He went up on the stage, behind Beck, and turned back just as he got close to the mic. Well, everybody who did laugh at the ‘gag’, including Kim Kardashian, Jay-Z, and Beyoncé, had front seats to Kanye cussing everyone out, including them, during one of his rants on X (play dangerous games, win dangerous prizes).

Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift during the 2009 MTV Music Video Awards.

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Coming a little closer to present time, during his acceptance speech at the 2024 Grammys, Jay mentioned several Black artists who had been snubbed over the years but he again brought up how his poor wife has never won the Album of the Year. He said, “I don’t want to embarrass this young lady, but she has the most Grammy wins of all time. So even by your own metrics that doesn’t work. Think about that: the most Grammys, never won Album of the Year. That doesn’t work.” After imparting some more knowledge about how Grammys are unfair, Jay took his shiny award and went back.

After all the complaining, Beyoncé won the award in 2025 for Cowboy Carter, which was honestly a well-deserved win, even though it was nominated alongside some great projects such as Charlie XCX’s ‘Brat’ and Chappell Roan’s ‘The Fall and Rise of a Midwest Princess’. But Grammy, being the forever infuriating award show it is, went one step further to appease the 43-year-old. The album was also nominated in the category of Best Country Album of the Year, alongside ‘Higher’ by Chris Stapleton. In fact, ‘Cowboy Carter’ beat ‘Higher’ and bagged the award, and that doesn’t sit right with many. Yes, ‘Higher’ was based on a formula that Chris had used before, but that formula works, and it works wonders.

Jay-Z calling out the Grammys. (Photo: YouTube/Grammys)

Logic has never won Album of the Year, and neither has Kendrick Lamar. Madonna has also never achieved this feat, and for some unfathomable reason neither has Prince (even after practically playing every sound and singing every note on the entire project). The Thin White Duke David Bowie and the Prince of Soul Marvin Gaye are also unfortunate members of this column. The point is that there are a lot of great artists who have never experienced the joy of accepting that award; you just have to take it like a sport. When fighting against an unjust system, sometimes you need to do more. More than just accepting your award when the system works in your favour. If Beyoncé truly felt snubbed all these years, and Jay actually feels that Black artists are still marginalised and not given equal representation during these award ceremonies, then they should continue to criticise and raise their voice. It would break my heart if, after all these years, the power couple would suddenly stop raising their voice for their community just because they got their due.