The Grammy Awards show is music’s biggest night. A Grammy nomination solidifies that the work of an artist has reached the highest level of acceptance and appreciation. So, a Grammy win translates as the pinnacle of success within the music industry. This year, Beyoncé’s Lemonade was nominated for nine awards, including the night’s most prestigious awards, song of the year (Formation) and album of the year (Lemonade). As an unapologetic member of the Beyhive, I feel she deserves to win any award for which she is nominated. However, that didn’t happen this year. This year Beyoncé only took home awards for 2 of her 9 nominations. The honor of both song of the year (Hello) and album of the year (25) went to Adele.
As Adele accepted both awards, she gave Beyoncé extreme praise for Lemonade. During her album of the year acceptance speech, Adele praises Beyoncé for, “The way you make me and my friends feel, the way you make my black friends feel is empowering. She continues by saying Lemonade encourages [her Black friends] to “stand up for themselves.”
Ironically, what Adele mentions in her acceptance speech is the exact intention behind the creation of Lemonade. As Beyoncé accepted the award for best contemporary urban album she said,
“We all experience pain and loss, and often we become inaudible. My intention for the film and album was to create a body of work that would give a voice to our pain, our struggles, our darkness and our history. To confront issues that make us uncomfortable.”‘
Adele’s speech offers Beyoncé confirmation that her intentions behind creating Lemonade are received. Beyoncé might not have won the Grammy for album of the year, but she fulfilled her purpose. I call that a win without winning.
If you are a person managing depression, I want to encourage you to be your authentic self. And more importantly, if you are the loved one of a person who is managing depression, always allow that person to be true to themselves. If you recall, Beyoncé’s Lemonade was met with fierce criticism. She was accused of hating police for a scene within the Formation video. She was demeaned for creating an unapologetically Black album (whatever that means). Even her performance at this year’s Grammys didn’t go over well with some viewers. Social media was not kind to the Queen. But guess what? None of the opposition matters to a person with purpose and to a person who has the support of loved ones. Having Tina Knowles introduce her daughter was not only symbolic to that breathtaking visual performance, but also to the entire Lemonade project. I can only imagine the motherly advice that Mrs. Tina gave Beyoncé while Lemonade was under so much scrutiny.
I visited with a good friend this weekend and she said something that stuck with me. She said, we should want purpose over people. I agree. Fulfilling purpose is more important than pleasing people, and is certainly more important than winning an award. It’s clear that Beyoncé created Lemonade under the premise of this philosophy. I’m proud of you Queen Bey for showing us all we can win without winning, and that she doesn’t need an award to love herself. You might not be a Beyoncé fan, and that’s okay. But let’s follow her lead by staying true to our purpose. And as always, let’s press on together!