(ThyBlackMan.com) On last Sunday night the trend continued of Beyoncé and Adele, with Adele surprising many by claiming the best album award, defeating Beyoncé. Solange herself spoke out about Beyoncé’s loss on Sunday. She tweeted: “Create your own committees, build your own institutions, give your friends awards, award yourself, and be the gold you wanna hold, my Gs”. The tweet was later deleted.
Music writer Kevin Powell suggested Beyoncé’s Lemonade – which tackles racial politics, police shootings and female empowerment – made voters “uncomfortable” because it is “unapologetically black. We are still a nation that does not want to deal so directly with truth,” he told CNN.
“Adele’s album is strong, but it is just songs about love. It is safe and
uncontroversial; it breaks no new ground. And neither do Grammy voters, generally speaking, when it comes to picking winners of this particular award.” Adele’s 25 was the most successful record on the shortlist – selling 9.2 million copies in the US, compared to Beyoncé’s 1.6 million. Adele broke down in tears as she accepted the best album prize, saying Beyonce was the “artist of my life”.
Elaborating on her Beyoncé love backstage, Adele recalled: “I remember when I was 11 years old, I was with some girlfriends, and we were practicing a song to do at an assembly. I probably suggested the Spice Girls, and they said have you heard [Destiny’s Child’s] ‘No No No’? And I was like, ‘no, no, no.’ I remember how I felt hearing her voice. I fell in love immediately with her. The way I felt when I first heard ‘No No No’ was exactly the same as when I first heard ‘Lemonade’ last year. … The other artists who mean that much to me are all dead.”
Some musicians chimed in on the Beyonce snub. In an interview with the Australian Associated Press ahead of tour dates there, the infamous Carlos Santana said: “Beyoncé is very beautiful to look at and it’s more like modeling kind of music — music to model a dress — she’s not a singer, singer, with all respect to her.” Adele, on the other hand, “doesn’t bring all the dancers and props, she can just stand there and she just stood there and sang the song and that’s it, and this is why she wins,” he added.
The president of the Grammys has insisted that his award show is not racist, after critics pointed out the consistent overlooking of black artists. In the last 10 years, only one black musician has won album of the year: Herbie Hancock, whose 2008 album, River, was a collection of covers of songs by the white folk singer, Joni Mitchell.
In 2015, when Adele graced the cover of Time Magazine, she slammed rumors that she’d turned down the opportunity to work with Beyoncé on her album “25”.Whoever started that rumor must be having a laugh,” she said. “Because anyone who knows me knows that my main priority in life outside of my child is Beyoncé.”
Then in December, for Adele’s cover story, Beyoncé made it clear to Vanity Fair that the admiration goes both ways. “It is so easy to talk to her and be around her,” Beyonce, 35, said. “She’s funny as hell and her comebacks are legendary. The most beautiful thing about Adele is that she has her priorities straight. She is a gracious woman and the most humble human I’ve ever met.”
Staff Writer; Amber Ogden
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