Grammys 2017: Beyoncé Wins Best Urban Contemporary Album

Beyoncé has won Best Urban Contemporary Album at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards. Lemonade picked up the win over albums by Rihanna, Anderson .Paak, KING, and Gallant. In the below acceptance speech, she thanked God, her “wonderful husband,” her “beautiful daughter,” and her fans. “We all experience pain and loss, and often we become inaudible,” she said. “My intention for the film and album was to create body of work that will give a voice to our pain—our struggles, our darkness, and our history. To confront issues that make us uncomfortable.” She continued:

It’s important to me to show images to my children that reflect their beauty so they can grow up in a world where they look in the mirror first at their own families as well as the news, the Super Bowl, the Olympics, the White House, and the Grammys, and see themselves and have no doubt that they’re beautiful and intelligent and capable. This is something I want for every child of every race, and I feel it’s vital that we learn from the past and recognize our tendencies to repeat our mistakes. Thank you again for honoring Lemonade. Have a beautiful evening. Thank you for tonight, this is incredible.

Beyoncé was nominated nine times tonight, including nods for Record of the Year and Album of the Year. Being nominated in rock, rap, pop, and urban contemporary categories, this marks the first time an artist has been nominated in four genre categories in the same year. (“Daddy Lessons” was submitted for country Grammys, but was rejected by the country Grammy committee.) Earlier tonight, she won Best Music Video and gave a memorable performance of “Love Drought” and “Sandcastles.”

Read “The Beyoncé Lemonade Merch of Our Dreams, Realized” and “6 Takeaways From the 2017 Grammy Nominations.”

For more of Pitchfork’s coverage of this year’s Grammy Awards, click here.

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