JAY-Z is a firm believer in Beyoncé‘s RENAISSANCE being the worthy winner of Album of the Year at the 2023 GRAMMYs. In an interview with TIDAL’s Elliot Wilson, Hov touched on the impact of RENAISSANCE from a practical point of view, stating how inspirational his wife’s album has become in such a short span of time. The music mogul sat down for an exclusive interview with Tidal ahead of Sunday’s award ceremony. And explained that while there is excitement around his wife being nominated for Album of the Year, he doesn’t allow himself to get too caught up in the emotions around it.
Jay went on to explain that he feels the Grammys “missed the mark” by failing to award his album 4:44 with Album of the Year at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards. Additionally, the Grammys nominated the album eight times and Jay ended the evening with zero awards. Hov Addressed His Decision To Perform At The 65th Annual Grammys Ceremony Despite his longstanding frustration with the Grammys, the 53-year-old revealed that he felt he needed to take the stage “for the culture.”
"Yeah, I remove myself from the process and hope they just get it right. It got to the point where I was like, it’s just a marketing thing. You go, you got an album out and it could help the sales go up. It got to that point, but deep down … Again, we grew up idolizing this. It was like one of the pillars for us…
" They play her whole album in the club. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that,” he said. “The whole entire joint — like, everything?! Every remix is amazing. Everyone’s inspired. It has inspired the world. Every remix is better than the other one.” He continued, “From anybody, we’re just finding these joints out in the street. Somebody just did a joint over Suga Free the other day — you heard this joint? It’s a West Coast classic. The DJ put Bey’s vocals over this at a party and it went crazy.” JAY-Z added, “It’s inspiring creativity. You know how The Black Album had The Grey Album? And the one with Radiohead? It was called Jaydiohead. When it just inspires creativity, that’s an album. That has to be Album of the Year. It has to be . ”
“ I thought about it, I was in my head and I just broke down and said, ‘You know, it’s a four-minute verse.’ Again, for the culture, for hip-hop, we got to do that. This ain’t your traditional song. … It’s not your traditional structure of what you think a song that would be nominated for Song of the Year would sound like. It’s not what you expect… A four-minute verse performed at the Grammys. We owe it to the culture, and it ain’t even a burden. It’s a blessing. It’s easy and fun.”
