Jay-Z used his acceptance speech at the Grammy Awards to condemn the academy for failing to give his wife Beyonce the best album award, despite her 32 wins in other categories.
The Brooklyn-born rapper was honored with the Dr Dre Global Impact Award for his contribution to the music industry.
With his 12-year-old daughter Blue Ivy standing on stage beside him, and wife Beyonce looking on from their table in the audience, Jay-Z spoke about the importance of dreams, drive and ambition.
He said that there were more important things in life than winning Grammys, noting they were subjective – and pointing out his superstar wife had never won best album.
‘I don’t want to embarrass this young lady, but she has more Grammys than everyone and never won Album of the Year,’ Jay-Z said. ‘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.’
Jay-Z is seen delivering a passionate rebuke of the Grammys for failing to give his wife Beyonce a best album award
Jay-Z, 54, is seen with his 12-year-old daughter Blue Ivy on stage at the Grammy Awards
The camera cut to Beyonce, looking slightly apprehensive in the audience.
Jay-Z has been nominated for 88 competitive Grammy Awards, winning 24 of them. Six of his nominations have been for Album of the Year.
Beyonce has also been nominated for 88 competitive Grammy Awards, winning 33 of them.
Like her husband, Beyonce has been nominated six times for Album of the Year, but never won.
In 2015, when Beyonce lost out on Album of the Year to Beck, Kanye West pretended to storm the stage in protest.
The moment drew parallels to West’s actions in 2009, when he famously interrupted Swift as she accepted the Best Female Video award, telling her: ‘Yo, Taylor, I’m really happy for you. … but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time.’
West in 2015 mimed storming the stage again, protesting that her album ‘Beyonce’ lost out to Beck’s ‘Morning Phase’.
Recording Academy voters choose who wins Album of the Year, and in 2015 the voter base was split between Pharrell, Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith. Beck’s support was united, leading to Beck’s win.
West, a protégée of Jay-Z’s, insisted in interviews in 2015 that Beyonce had been robbed.
‘All I know is if the Grammys want real artists to keep coming back, they need to stop playing with us. We ain’t gonna play with them no more,’ he said.
‘Beck needs to respect artistry and he should have given his award to Beyoncé, and at this point, we tired of it.’
Jay-Z on Sunday said the awards were subjective – but nice to win.
At the start of his speech, he joked that his Grammy Awards used to be used as sippy cups for Blue Ivy – but now ‘she has her own Grammys,’ he said.
She won her first Grammy aged 9, with a writing credit for Brown Skin Girl, which won in 2021 for her mother.
Jay-Z continued: ‘How far we’ve come from Will Smith and Jazzy Jeff winning their first Grammy in ’89 and boycotting because it wasn’t televised.
‘And then they went to the hotel and watched the Grammys. I didn’t even understand. It wasn’t a great boycott.’
He said that he then did a similar thing.
‘But then ’98, I took a page out of their book. I was nominated for Best Rap Album, and DMX had dropped two albums that year. They both were number one — shout out to DMX — and he wasn’t nominated at all.
‘So I boycotted and I watched the Grammys.
‘I’m just saying, we want y’all to get it right. We love y’all. We love y’all. We love y’all. We want y’all to get it right. At least get it close to right.’
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