2025 Grammy Awards honored the industry's best
Note: To ensure that the beautiful photo above of Beyoncé and her daughter Blue is properly credited: the image was provided by Getty Images for The Recording Academy
The 67th Annual Grammy Awards®, which comedian Trevor Noah hosted, offered attendees and television audiences alike a night to remember. Not only did one of music’s greatest entertainers win Album of the Year for the first time in her illustrious career but she also became only the fourth Black woman to win the Award. Hip Hop royalty Ms. Lauryn Hill took home the prize in 1999; the late, great vocal powerhouse Whitney Houston won at the height of her career in 1994; musical chanteuse Natalie Cole won in 1992; and on Sunday, February 2, 2025, Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter was the figurative Belle of the Grammy’s Ball becoming the fourth Black woman to win the coveted prize. Happy Black History Month!
Why does any of this matter? In years past the Grammy Awards® had come under fire from some of the biggest and most celebrated names in all of music (including Beyoncé’s husband Jay-Z) for what they deemed a misrepresentation of winners during the shows. Leading up to the ceremonies, the Grammy Awards® would promote performances by stars like Beyoncé and Jay-Z, seemingly to draw audiences to tune in to the show, only for other artists to take home the night’s biggest prizes. Some of those performers began lamenting the Grammy’s publicly for using them to promote their shows while others threatened to boycott the ceremony if the show’s practices didn’t change. So when a member of the Los Angeles Fire Department stood on the Grammy’s stage at the end of Sunday night’s ceremony to announce the Album of the Year and declared Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” album the winner, it was evidence that the Recording Academy (under the leadership of Harvey Mason, Jr.) was ready to endorse the image of the Black artist as more than just a promo tool.
In addition to winning the Album of the Year award, Beyoncé also took home the awards for Best Country Duo or Group for her song “II Most Wanted,” featuring Miley Cyrus, and Best Country Album. Her victory for Best Country Album followed a significant snub at another awards show just a few months earlier, which was enough to rally even the most cynical artists, with several journalists joining in on the celebration in the ceremony's media area. Beyoncé now holds the record as the artist with the most Grammy nominations (99) and wins (35). See the slideshow below for other highlights from the show (note: Kevin Mazur and Getty Images captured all photos on behalf of the Recording Academy).
