By Tribune Staff
NASHVILLE, TN — Beyonce and Taylor Swift were among several women who dominated the proceedings at Sunday night’s 63rd GRAMMY® Awards, as women artists ruled in the “Big Four” categories (Album, Record, and Song of the Year, plus Best New Artist), and Beyoncé and Swift made GRAMMY® history and set new records/
This year’s Best New Artist winner, Megan Thee Stallion, and Beyoncé became the first all-female collaboration to win Best Rap Performance for their mega-hit “Savage.” Later, when “Savage” also won Best Rap Song midway through the CBS telecast, host Trevor Noah declared, “Before you leave the stage, we want everybody to know that right now GRAMMY® history has been made!”
Beyonce initially tied Alison Karuss’s record of 27 wins, then broke it when her song “Black Parade” won for Best R&B Performance. That win set a new record for the most GRAMMY® wins ever by a female artist — and by any singer, male or female.
“Oh my God, I am so honored, I’m so excited,” Beyoncé said. “Thank you. As an artist, I believe it’s my job and all of our jobs to reflect the times. And it’s been such a difficult time. So, I wanted to uplift, encourage, celebrate all of the beautiful Black queens and kings that continue to inspire me and inspire the whole world. This is so overwhelming. I have been working my whole life, since nine years old. And I can’t believe this happened. It’s such a magical night, thank you so much. I know my daughter is watching. … Blue, congratulations, you won a GRAMMY® tonight.”
The “Brown Skin Girl” video — co-starring Beyoncé’s daughter Blue Ivy Carter — also won for Best Short Form Music Video during Sunday’s Premiere Ceremony. This win established nine-year-old Blue Ivy as the second-youngest GRAMMY® recipient ever (after “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” soundtrack singer Leah Peasall, who was eight years old at the time of her 2001 win.)
Swift became the first woman to win Album of the Year honors three times, a feat achieved previously by only three other artists: Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon. Swift’s win for her quarantine album “Folklore” followed her respective 2010 and 2016 Album of the Year accolades for “Fearless” and “1989.” Swift accepted her third Album of the Year trophy alongside her “Folklore” collaborators, the National’s Aaron Dessner (who described her as “one of the greatest living songwriters”), and producer Jack Antonoff.
Along with Megan’s Best New Artist and Swift’s Album of the Year victories, the other two “Big Four” honors went to women. H.E.R. won with her George Floyd-inspired protest song “I Can’t Breathe,” and last year’s big winner Billie Eilish, picked up the night’s final prize, Record of the Year, for “Everything I Wanted.”
The 63rd Annual GRAMMY® Awards were staged outdoors, without an audience, in the Los Angeles Convention Center area next door to its usual Staples Center location
