After 99 nominations, Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ delivers the Grammy win we've been waiting for

3 February 2025, 11:29 | Updated: 4 February 2025, 13:30

After 99 nominations, Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ delivers the Grammy's win we've been waiting for.
After 99 nominations, Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ delivers the Grammy's win we've been waiting for. Picture: Getty

By Charlie Girling

She's already one of the most successful Black female entertainers in history - but one prize always eluded her.

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A multi-hyphenate singer, businesswoman and entrepreneur worth nearly a billion dollars; she's performed for presidents and headlined Glastonbury, and is the Grammy's most decorated artist ever with 99 previous nominations.

But the biggest music prize of all had always eluded Beyonce, despite four previous appearances on the shortlist.

Until last night that is - when Cowboy Carter won the 2025 Grammy's Album of the Year.Standing on stage next to her daughter Blue Ivy, the 44 year old made a tactful, if pointed, reference to the long awaited moment: "I just feel very full and very honoured. It’s been many, many years and I just want to thank the Grammy's; every songwriter, every collaborator, every producer, all the hard work."

In a throwback to her husband Jay Z's famous track 99 Problems, ceremony host Trevor Noah joked afterwards: "She had 99 nominations, and now an album of the year win is one."

Beyonce's only the fourth Black woman to ever win the prestigious Grammy Album of the Year, and her acceptance speech ended with a tribute to trailblazing Black country musician Linda Martell - and a promise that she would keep 'pushing forward and opening doors'.

That wasn't even the only time she made history last night - as her same record, Cowboy Carter, also became the first by a Black female artist to win the Best Country Album prize.

In a moment amusing to most music ceremony nerds that award was even handed over by Taylor Swift - the artist whose win over Beyonce at the 2009 MTV VMAs led to Kanye West's infamous storming of the stage and one of the music industry's longest-running feuds.

The look of shock on Beyonce's face as her name was read out in this category has already become one of last night's defining images; and even sweeter given she missed out on a single nomination for the same record at the 2024 Country Music Awards.

It follows a storm of controversy in the country music industry around the release of Cowboy Carter - with many influential country figures feeling that Beyonce was appropriating a genre that didn't belong to her, as a black female artist known for R&B and pop.

The singer's fascination with country isn't a recent development though - nine years ago she performed with the Chicks (then known as the Dixie Chicks) at the Country Music Awards, which led to a barrage of criticism online, much of it racist.

Beyonce alluded to that 2016 experience in an Instagram post announcing Cowboy Carter's release - saying the music was "born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcome" and it had inspired her to take "a deeper dive into the history of country".

The image of her on the album's front cover, riding a white horse with a white stetson and draped in the American flag, nailed her country colours to the mast - and last night's historic Best Country Album win cemented that.

So what next for Beyonce? A long-trailed Cowboy Carter world tour, and the release of the third album in her Renaissance trio likely to be out by 2026.

Now she's conquered country to add to her successes in R&B, pop and house music it's anyone's guess as to which genre she'll pick next - though it's rumoured Act III could see her create anything from a big-band jazz album to hard rock.