Beyoncé finally wins Album of the Year at Grammys 2025 for ‘Cowboy Carter’

The 2025 Grammy Awards just laid their cards down (down, down, down) for Beyoncé.

The singer finally won Album of the Year during Sunday’s 67th annual ceremony for her 2024 country album, Cowboy Carter, after losing the highly coveted award four times in the past. She also won Best Country Album earlier in the night. She was nominated for 11 trophies in various categories overall.

“I’d like to thank and acknowledge and praise all of the firefighters keeping us safe,” Beyoncé said after a group of Los Angeles Firefighters presented her with the award. “I just feel very full and very honored. It’s been many, many years.”

While Beyoncé is the most-decorated artist in Grammys history, she has been notoriously snubbed in the Album of the Year category every single time she’s been nominated previously: for Renaissance in 2023, for Lemonade in 2017, for Beyoncé in 2015, and for I Am… Sasha Fierce in 2010. She lost the award to Taylor Swift, then to Beck, then to Adele, and finally to Harry Styles, and even referenced the past snubs on her Cowboy Carter track “Sweet Honey Buckin'” with the lyrics: “AOTY, I ain’t win / I ain’t stuntin’ ’bout them / Take that s— on the chin / Come back and f— up the pen.”

In addition to her finally breaking her Album of the Year losing streak, Beyoncé already made history by becoming the first Black woman to be nominated in the category for a country album. Ray Charles holds the honor for being the first Black man nominated for the award for 1962’s Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music.

Only three Black women have won Album of the Year previously: Natalie Cole in 1992, Whitney Houston in 1994, and Lauryn Hill in 1999. Beyoncé is also the first Black woman to top Billboard‘s country chart, with “Texas Hold ‘Em.”

No Black woman has ever won a Grammy for a country song, although Beyoncé tried previously in 2016, when she submitted “Daddy Lessons,” from Lemonade, in a country category. However, the Recording Academy’s country music committee rejected it.

When Beyoncé’s husband, Jay-Z, won the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award at last year’s ceremony, he used his time on the Grammys stage to call out the Recording Academy for never honoring his wife with the Album of the Year award.

“I’m just sayin’, we want y’all to get it right,” the rapper said. “We love y’all… at least get it close to right. And obviously it’s subjective — y’all don’t gotta clap at everything — obviously it’s subjective because it’s music and it’s opinion-based. But some things, you know… I don’t want to embarrass this young lady, but she has more Grammys than everyone and never won Album of the Year, so even by your own metrics, that doesn’t work. Think about that: the most Grammys, never won Album of the Year. That doesn’t work.”

Meanwhile, Cowboy Carter got no love from the Country Music Association Awards, receiving zero nominations for its November ceremony, adding another chapter to the controversial “is Cowboy Carter a country album?” debate.

If you ask Bey herself, she calls it “a ‘Beyoncé’ album,” because it was born out of an experience she had years ago when she did not “feel welcomed” in the country genre.

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“And it was very clear that I wasn’t,” she wrote on Instagram 10 days before Cowboy Carter‘s release. “But because of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the history of country music and studied our rich musical archive. It feels good to see how music can unite so many people around the world, while also amplifying the voices of some of the people who have dedicated so much of their lives educating on our musical history.”

She continued, “The criticisms I faced when I first entered this genre forced me to propel past the limitations that were put on me. Act II is a result of challenging myself, and taking my time to bend and blend genres together to create this body of work… I hope that you can hear my heart and soul, and all the love and passion that I poured into every detail and every sound. This ain’t a Country album. This is a ‘Beyoncé’ album.” 

The 67th Annual Grammy Awards were held Sunday at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, and streamed live on CBS and Paramount+.