Beyoncé became the most crowned artist of all time at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday, but the supreme prize for best album still eluded her, in favor of British popstar Harry Styles.
With four new gramophones, including the best R&B song Cuff-it or the best dance/electronic album (“Renaissance”) “Queen B” will leave with her arms full and she will have to make room on her shelf to display the 32 awards of her entire career, an absolute record, one more than the conductor Georg Solti in the 1990s.
“I try not to be too moved”, she launched, thanking in turn her parents, her “beautiful husband” Jay-Z, her “three beautiful children” and “the queer community” who support her. always supported.
Beyoncé therefore enters the story. But once again, a major reward eludes him: as in 2017 with “Lemonade”, which has become a classic, “Renaissance”, his latest house and dance opus, failed to obtain the prize for best album.
On the glowing stage of the Crypto.com Arena, pop sensation Harry Styles took the prize, thanks to “Harry’s House,” which also won him the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album.
Dressed all in sparkly fringe, he performed his hit “As It Was” at a night that was packed with stars, from Jay-Z to Kendrick Lamar and Dr. Dre, to Stevie Wonder, Madonna, Lizzo and Mary J. Blige.
The Bonnie Raitt Surprise
In another surprise, blues, folk and country veteran Bonnie Raitt, 73, won song of the year with “Just Like That”, an award presented to her by US First Lady Jill Biden. However, the competition was tough with the hits of Beyoncé (“Break my soul”), Adele (“Easy on me”) or Taylor Swift (“All too well”).
Lizzo won Recording of the Year for ‘About Damn Time’, while British star Adele had to settle for Best Pop Solo Performance.
In 2017, the “Hello” singer crushed her competitors in the main categories, winning five awards with her album “25”, at the expense of Beyoncé, whose album “Lemonade”, had to settle for the Grammy Award of the “best album of contemporary urban music”.
The Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which hands out the awards, had once again been accused of relegating artists of color to the background.
Bad Bunny, the Spanish-speaking success
The evening, hosted by South African comedian Trevor Noah, opened with a performance by the prince of Puerto Rican reggaeton Bad Bunny, one of the most commercially successful artists in the world in 2022.
Nominated in three categories, he won a gramophone.
History was already in motion for Beyoncé: with the nominations for this edition, she had equaled the record of her husband, Jay-Z, as the most nominated artist in the history of these awards (88).
Other stars shone, such as rapper Kendrick Lamar who won three awards with best rap performance and best rap song for “The Heart Part 5” and best album, with “Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers”.
“This is one of the hardest records I’ve made,” said the apostle of social and political rap, the only hip-hop artist to ever win a Pulitzer Prize for one of his previous albums. .
“Looking back and thinking back to when I started rapping, how far I’ve come, I wanted to thank the culture for allowing me to evolve to make a song,” he added.
American folk-rock star Brandi Carlile, who had seven nominations, turned three into gramophones, including best rock song and best rock performance with “Broken Horses.”
Revelation
Among the first sensations of the pre-ceremony, actress Viola Davis joined the very select club of artists who won the four major American awards, the Oscar (cinema), the Emmy (television), the Tony (theater ) and Sunday evening a Grammy, in the category “audiobook, narration” for his memoir “Finding Me”.
She is the 18th artist to perform this exceptional performance, called “EGOT”, after notably Whoopi Goldberg, Mel Brooks, or Rita Moreno.
The first award of its kind in the history of the Grammys, the award for best music in a video game went to American Stephanie Economou, for the music of “Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn Of Ragnarok”.
The race was wide open for the revelation of the year, between the Brazilian Anitta, the Italian rockers of Maneskin, the rapper Latto…
But, still a surprise, it was finally the jazz singer from the Bronx, Samara Joy, 23, who received the award. Impressed by her voice, critics are already comparing her to great African-American jazz singers like Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan or Nina Simone.