the award was for “album of the year”, not “artist who plays the most instruments” or “resume of the year”. beck has absolutely been successful in the past, no one’s denying that, but his album did not sell even CLOSE to as well as beyonce’s album sold, which is truly amazing because beyonce literally dropped the album with no notice and had zero advertising, yet it sold over 300k in three days. his album did not contain incredibly empowering messages about womanhood, feminism, sexuality and race in an industry that tends to not encourage such concepts, especially when they’re coming from a middle-aged & married black mother. i mean, his album didn’t literally change the game the way beyonce’s “i’m not gonna use any prior advertising or social media or hints before i drop this digitally” album, and honestly, it was barely talked about in comparison. look at the hits beyonce’s music videos got. look at how many times her songs were played on the radio. look at how many people have begun thinking critically about feminism and sexuality and motherhood.
for an industry that consistently uses “the numbers” as a way of denying black female artists their awards, i’d say kanye was rightfully upset that now, these same numbers were being ignored and suddenly, beyonce’s loss was about the “music”, and a white man’s irrelevant past accomplishments. besides, someone playing 14 instruments doesn’t mean they somehow have more artistry than a woman who uses 4 writers for one song (an idea that demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how the R&B music industry even works), so really, there’s no reason why kanye west defending one of his closest friends in the music industry should be a shameful thing. like, if even beck can admit that beyonce should have won, which he did, i think yall should get your heads out of your asses.
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