After 88 career nominations, Beyoncé, the R&B singer and pop superstar won her 32nd Grammy on Sunday, for best dance/electronic music album, giving her the record for most Grammy victories.
Beyoncé’s fourth win of the night — after taking home best R&B song for “Cuff It” and two awards at the preshow ceremony — came in a category that showed the breadth of her two-decade career: “Renaissance,” her tribute to Black and queer dance music, beat work by Bonobo, Diplo, Odesza and Rüfüs du Sol. Beyoncé became the first Black woman to win in the dance album category, which has been awarded since 2005.
Earlier, her No. 1 single “Break My Soul” had won in best dance/electronic recording, while “Plastic Off the Sofa,” from the same genre-spanning album, won best traditional R&B performance.
After the winner for dance/electronic album was announced by James Corden, who exclaimed, “This is an honor, because we are witnessing history tonight!”, Beyoncé, who had not yet arrived at the ceremony when she won her first televised award of the night, took the stage to a standing ovation. “I’m trying not to be too emotional,” she said, “and I’m trying to just receive this night.”
Nominated nine times overall on Sunday, mostly for “Renaissance” and its songs, the diva picked up four trophies at the ceremony, bringing her grand total to 32 and establishing her as the most-decorated artist in Grammy history.
However, two of Beyoncé’s awards were presented off the air, at Sunday afternoon’s preshow Premiere Ceremony, and she actually missed one of her on-air categories because, according to the host, Trevor Noah, she was stuck in L.A. traffic. She was widely predicted to win the night’s most prestigious honor, Album of the Year, for Renaissance — her fourth nomination in that category, following her controversial defeats in previous years to Taylor Swift, Beck, and Adele — but once again, she lost, this time to Harry Styles’s Harry’s House.
Beyoncé’s status as both a perennial, now-unmatched Grammy favorite and also a high-profile loser under the ceremony’s brightest lights — including album losses to both Adele and Taylor Swift, each of whom has won the category multiple times — has underlined the show’s complex relationship with contemporary Black music.
