The Last Time A Black Woman Won Album of the Year was 25 Years Ago. What Does That Say?
The recent Grammy awards, one of the music industry’s biggest nights, came and went. With it, another year of glitz, glamour, and gowns has gone by without a Black Woman receiving the Grammy’s top award, Album of the Year.
This year, there were two Black women nominated, Janelle Monae for “Age of Pleasure”, a critically acclaimed work, and SZA for her work “SOS” a favorite to win.
Many felt it was SZA’s year. Her album “SOS” was, as Vulture puts it “…one of the most beloved albums of the year (despite coming out in 2022), featuring hits including “Kill Bill” and “Good Days.” Pitchfork rated SOS as their number one album of 2023, saying “It’s an approach to heartbreak that is so familiar and exacting that the album stayed at the top of the Billboard 200 album chart for ten weeks.”
But when it came time to open the envelope for Album of the Year, neither Janelle Monae nor SZA’s name was present.
While fans of both headed online to air their grievances, others shared another glaring fact: this Grammy Awards marks the twenty-fifth year that no Black woman has…
