How many Grammys has Jay-Z won?
For a quarter of a century now, Jay-Z has been a consistent fixture of the Grammy Awards. Year after year, he tends to be nominated for something, and he often leaves the ceremony with a trophy in his hand. But how many has he actually accumulated at this point?
Hov won his first Grammy way back in 1999, securing the ‘Best Rap Album’ award for his third album Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life. But while this was a great achievement, it did, in fact, lay bare the tensions that have historically existed between the Grammys and the hip-hop community more broadly. Jay didn’t even attend his victorious 1999 ceremony as a protest against the fact that DMX had been overlooked by the selection committee. This was widely perceived as yet another instance in which the Grammys failed to treat a serious hip-hop artist with the respect they deserved.
But despite Jay’s evident annoyance with the Grammys, he thereafter became one of its biggest winners. He received multiple nominations in the years that followed the 1999 show, but failed to win anything until 2004. That was the year he and his future wife, Beyoncé, secured wins in the ‘Best R&B Song’ and ‘Best Rap/Sung Collaboration ’ categories for ‘Crazy in Love’. Beyoncé took home a further three that night, in addition to the two she shared with Jay.
‘99 Problems’ secured Jay-Z the award for ‘Best Rap Solo Performance’ in 2005, and was successful again in 2006. Despite announcing that he was retiring from music following The Black Album, from which ‘99 Problems’ was lifted, he had also, around that time, joined forces with Linkin Park for their Collision Course EP, which featured mashups of his and their songs. The massive success of this project sent Jay duly back to the Grammys.
The lead single from the EP, ‘Numb/Encore’, won the Grammy for ‘Best Rap/Sung Collaboration’, with Jay and the band performing it on stage at the ceremony. Paul McCartney also jumped in to add a performance of The Beatles’ ‘Yesterday’ into the medley.
The Grammy successes have just continued to pile up from there. Barely a year has gone by without Jay-Z securing a nomination; he’s won an awful lot, too, finding particular success with his collaborations alongside other artists.
Among Jay’s most notable wins are those he secured for ‘Umbrella’, which he recorded with Rihanna, ‘Empire State of Mind,’ which he made with Alicia Keys, and multiple collaborations with Kanye West, including – but not limited to – wins for the songs ‘Otis’, ‘N*ggas in Paris’, and ‘No Church in the Wild’.
Jay has also found significant Grammy success with his wife since their ‘Crazy in Love’ wins in 2004, including an award for the song ‘Drunk in Love’ and the Everything Is Love album they made together. Indeed, Beyoncé is one of the very few people to have won more Grammy awards than Jay has. She’s won 35, more than any other person in the show’s history.
In terms of rappers, though, Jay is at the top of the pile, having won 25 awards throughout his long career. That’s one more than his frequent collaborator Kanye West has managed to achieve.