The Real Reason Jay-Z Has Beef With The Academy Behind The Grammys

The Carter family’s trophy case is practically a Grammy museum in its own right, with Beyoncé, Jay-Z, and even Blue Ivy collectively racking up a total of 61 Grammys. Queen Bey herself sits atop the leaderboard with a record-breaking 32 wins, but what’s especially baffling is that she’s never clinched the Album of the Year, despite dropping albums that have not just topped charts but have become cultural landmarks. Can you believe “Lemonade” was snubbed? It has all of us, including Jay-Z, scratching our heads.

And so at the 2024 Grammys, the rapper took the stage to receive the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award for his legacy in the music industry, but instead of recounting his career, he called out the inconsistency in Grammys voting, with his wife bearing much of the brunt. While he acknowledged that voting is “obviously subjective,” he pointed out that it doesn’t make sense that Beyoncé has lost out on Album of the Year too many times. “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 emphasized. “So even by your own metrics, that doesn’t work. Think about that.”

Jay-Z obviously wasn’t campaigning for a Beyoncé awards monopoly; he was simply making a request for the Recording Academy to give artists their flowers when they deserve it. “I’m just saying — we want you all to get it right,” he said. “We love y’all, we love y’all. We want you to get it right — or at least get it close to right.”