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According to New York Times, “nonwhite artists, female artists, and artists who come from the worlds of hip-hop and R&B are consistently marginalized, honored in genre categories but shut out in the four major categories.” Despite this controversy, several Black artists have broken barriers at the Grammys and continue to inspire others. This timeline documents some of these important moments and demonstrates the lack of recognition marginalized artists get, along with celebrating their success.
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This is not meant to be a comprehensive list of Black and marginalized winners and so not all awards won by these artists are featured here. This provides a good collection of Black artists who have won one of the Big Four Awards throughout history. Follow the links in the descriptions to listen to the songs/albums on YouTube.
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At the first ever Grammy awards, Ella Fitzgerald won two awards and made history as the first black woman to win a Grammy. She won for Best Female Vocal Performance and Best Jazz Performance.
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On this day, Stevie Wonder was the first Black artist to win album of the year for Innervisions
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Stevie Wonder won album of the year for Innervisions and
Roberta Flack won record of the year for "Killing me Softly With His Song". -
Stevie Wonder became the second artist ever to win an award in consecutive years after Frank Sinatra did this in the 60s. Wonder won for his album Fulfillingness' First Finale.
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Stevie Wonder remains the only artist in Grammy history to win this award with three consecutive studio albums and is one of just four artists who won album of the year three different times. This time he won for Songs in the Key of Life.
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Benson won for his song "This Masquerade".
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On this night, Jackson became the first artist to ever win eight Grammy Awards in one night. This award was won for his album Thriller.
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Lionel Richie won album of the year for Can't Slow Down.
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Turner won for her song "What's Love Got to Do With It".
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Jones produced "We Are the World" and won Record of the Year for it
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The band Sade, led by Black British singer Sade Adu, won Best New Artist.
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The pair won for writing "We Are the World".
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McFerrin won both for "Don't Worry Be Happy".
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Jones won for his album Back on the Block and won five other awards as well.
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Natalie Cole became the first black woman ever to win album of the year for her album Unforgettable...With Love. She also won record of the year for "Unforgettable".
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Houston won Album of the Year for her soundtrack to The Bodyguard, a film she starred in. She also won Record of the Year for "I Will Always Love You".
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Seal won both awards for his song "Kiss From a Rose".
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The group's lead singer was a Black artist, Darius Rucker.
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On this night, Hill was the first ever hip-hop artist to win Album of the Year with her debut solo album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. She also remains the only female artist in Grammy history to win Album of the Year for an album she was the sole producer of and became the first woman to win five awards in one night.
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Keys won Song of the Year for "Fallin".
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Outkast won for their album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below.
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Vandross won for his song "Dance With My Father".
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Charles was awarded Album of the Year posthumously for Genius Loves Company and Record of the Year for "Here We Go Again".
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Hancock won for his album River: The Joni Letters
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According to music scholar John Vilanonva, in this ten year period seventeen nonwhite artists were nominated for album of the year, however, the only winner was Herbie Hancock in 2008 which was a collection of covers of songs by white folk artist Joni Mitchell. Vilanova is also quoted saying "this is what systemic racism looks like" after artists of color have continuously won awards not included in the telecast even though white artists borrow heavily from black traditions.
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On this night, Beyoncé became the first woman to win six awards in one night.
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From 2012 to 2020, Black performers represented about 38% of all artists on Billboard's signature chart but only received 26.7% of top Grammy nominations.
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Beyoncé released a surprise album that disrupted the music industry and beat streaming records, but lost to Beck for Album of the Year.
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In 2014, rapper Macklemore received multiple awards in rap categories when Kendrick Lamar was favored to win. After his wins, Macklemore sent a text to Lamar saying the following:
"You got robbed. I wanted you to win. You should have. It’s weird and sucks that I robbed you. I was gonna say that during the speech. Then the music started playing during my speech and I froze. Anyway, you know what it is. Congrats on this year and your music. Appreciate you as an artist and a friend. Much love” -
During her speech, Adele was playing with her trophy and broke it in half as she explained that she didn't feel she deserved the award. In her opinion, she thought it should have went to Beyoncé for her album Lemonade.
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With Beyoncé's Album of the Year "snub" in 2016, she protested the awards by not performing and completely skipped the ceremony in 2019 and 2020. Her husband, Jay-Z, skipped these two years as well and has been more vocally criticizing the Grammys.
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He won both for the song "This is America".
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During this three year period, the Recording Academy made a push to diversify membership. Critics of the awards say it's long overdue and it seemed to make a difference.
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She won for her song "I Can't Breathe".
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Jon Batiste won album of the year for We Are
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Samara Joy made history as the 10th Black woman to claim the honor of Best New Artist on this night.
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Lizzo won the award for "About Damn Time".
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Earlier this night, Beyoncé became the winningest artist in the Recording Academy's history, however she still didn't win Album of the Year. Her album Renaissance celebrated Blackness and Queerness and was declared the record of 2022 by many. Harry Styles ended up winning the award for "Harry's House" which is the exactly type of old-fashioned album voters and the Academy like to hear.
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Throughout the history of the Grammy's, there have been many awards given to marginalized communities and many milestones accomplished by Black artists. However, multiple artists have been "snubbed" and the systemic racism the system is built on seems to have led to unequal treatment as genre and radio awards are more often given to Black artists and therefore not televised or as mainstream.
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Follow this link to see the Bibliography used to make this timeline.