Film director Spike Lee has shared his opinion on Harry Styles’ recent win for ‘Album of the Year’ at the Grammy Awards, stating that Beyoncé should’ve won for her record Renaissance.
Well-known for sharing his pop-culture opinions, Lee sat down with The Guardian in a recent interview to state his thoughts on the Oscar nominations and Grammy winners. Carrying a significant amount of “love and support” for the singer, the filmmaker continued by adding, “Her album [Renaissance] is amazing,” establishing himself a fan of the artist without being part of her loyal ‘Bey Hive’ online following.
Continuing, he exclaimed: “I know she’s won multiple Grammys, but four times nominated for album of the year and she’s lost every time? No disrespect to those artists like Adele or Harry Styles who won – it’s not their fault – but that’s some straight-up bullshit”.
His comments on the Grammys expanded to a wider conversation about the “history of great black artists” who have been nominated for esteemed awards without taking home the prize itself. “We all know their work is great, because art speaks for itself,” he said: “But then it always comes down to this tricky territory of validation. Do black artists say ‘Fuck it’, or seek white validation and chase awards?”.
Beyoncé might not have been lucky enough to take home the award for ‘Album of the Year’, but she did win a number of other trophies throughout the evening, including ‘Best Traditional R&B Performance’, ‘Best R&B Song’, ‘Best Dance/Electronic Music Album’ and ‘Best Dance/Electronic Recording’. The song ‘CUFF IT’ on her most recent album has become a major single, earning over 380,000,000 streams on Spotify as of February 14th, 2023.
After her wins at the most recent Grammys, Beyoncé has earned the most number of wins in the ceremony’s history.
