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Lionel’s win is akin to 1989 beating To Pimp a Butterfly, or if Drake’s Views would have bested Lemonade for AOTY - both reminiscent of some of the mistakes of the past decade: a pop album with little weight triumphing over a classic album built to stand the test of time. Lionel Richie’s win for Can’t Slow Down over Prince’s Purple Rain in 1985 was a glaring mistake. If we ignore those, the number of black artists that have won Album of the Year is cut in half to five: Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Lauryn Hill, and Outkast.įour of those five artists deserved to win Album of the Year. They live in a completely different category from something like Lemonade, a singular piece of work by a black solo artist. Most of them celebrate yesteryear, with the majority defined by the term “Various Artists.” And a decent amount of the music on these black albums are performed by white artists. Three are basically lifetime achievement awards. And in 2007, Herbie Hancock won for River: The Joni Letters, a Joni Mitchell tribute album. In 2005, Ray Charles’s Genius Loves Company won, an album of duets with other popular singers (he won posthumously).
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In 1994, The Bodyguard soundtrack won, featuring one half Whitney Houston songs (including Dolly Parton cover turned Whitney classic “I Will Always Love You”) and another half songs by other artists, from Kenny G to Lisa Stansfield to Joe Cocker. The album is gorgeous, and it is also primarily a covers album of songs performed by her father, Nat King Cole. The next year, Natalie Cole won for Unforgettable … With Love. It was a true flex for Quincy, showing how he was undeniably the connective tissue for three (or four) generations of black music. In 1991, Quincy Jones won for Back on the Block, an album featuring a who’s who in R&B and jazz, with some rap sprinkled in. When you look at those ten artists (who accounted for 12 wins in total Stevie Wonder won three times in four years), and understand who they were and what their albums represented, it’s a sobering reminder that the Grammys are just a metaphor for this country, and that even the richest and most celebrated black people still are very much black.įor starters, of those 12 albums, five have an asterisk. That’s a stat that has been cited many times over the past two days, but simply stopping there drastically oversimplifies what it actually means. In the history of the Grammy Awards, only ten black artists have won Album of the Year. It’s a pattern too blatant, too in your face to ignore. And 2013, Mumford & Sons’ Babel beat Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange. In 2014, Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories beat Kendrick’s Good Kid, MAAD City. In 2015, it was Beck’s Morning Phase over Beyoncé.
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In 2016, Taylor Swift’s 1989 won AOTY over Kendrick’s To Pimp a Butterfly. But this time, it seemed beyond disbelief, not because she happened to lose to Adele for 25, but because Beyoncé’s album Lemonade - the best and most important work of her career - still couldn’t find a way to win.Ī recap: This year it was 25 over Lemonade. For the third time, Beyoncé Knowles lost the Grammy for Album of the Year. Photo: Christopher Polk/Getty Images for NARASīy now, you know what happened.