Spike Lee: Beyoncé’s Grammy snub is “straight-up shenanigans, skulduggery, subterfuge”
Upon receiving the BFI Fellowship, a prestigious award, Spike Lee spoke out about fellow Black artists—including Beyoncé—being snubbed
Aux News Beyonce
We here at The A.V. Club love Beyoncé. The world loves Beyoncé. Judging from the immediate and deafening outcry to her recent Album Of The Year loss, nearly everyone in the entire universe loves Beyoncé–everyone except the Grammy voters who chose a guy like Harry Styles, yet again.
While the Renaissance snub may be old (but no less frustrating) news at this point, BlacKkKlansman director Spike Lee had some fresh things to say about the loss in a recent Guardian interview.
“I’m not the male president of the Bey Hive, but I love and support Beyoncé. Her album is amazing. I know she’s won multiple Grammys, but four times nominated for album of the year and she’s lost every time? No disrespect to those artists like Adele or Harry Styles who won. It’s not their fault, but that’s some straight-up bullshit,” he said.
Lee was recently awarded the BFI Fellowship, the highest honor bestowed by the British Film Institute, for his “outstanding contribution to film or television culture” through films and series like Do The Right Thing and She’s Gotta Have It. Still, as a leader in the #OscarsSoWhite movement and longtime veteran of the industry, he is of course intimately familiar with the hurdles fellow Black artists have to jump through for a morsel of recognition. (A clip from Aubrey Plaza’s 2019 Independent Spirit Awards speech calling out the lack of acting nominations for Lee’s own BlacKkKlansman has also recently gone viral.)
“There’s a history of great black artists who come up for these awards and don’t win,” Lee said. “We all know their work is great, because art speaks for itself. But then it always comes down to this tricky territory of validation. Do black artists say: ‘Fuck it’–or seek white validation and chase awards?”
But wherever Queen Bey goes from here, Lee (and all of us) are firmly in her corner. “I just want to give a shoutout to my sister Beyoncé,” he said in conclusion. “We know what the deal is. It’s straight-up shenanigans, skulduggery, subterfuge. Or as the British say: it’s some poppycock!” Poppycock, indeed.
18 Comments
Are we very certain that was Spike Lee and not Jackie Chiles?
Christ, what a fucking tool.
Did Spike Lee ever apologize for his crypto commercial? Until then he can shut the fuck up forever.
And his horrible-ass remake of Oldboy.
I hope all the celebs who did crypto commercials last year got paid in crypto
And how did she not win the Super Bowl? It’s straight up sexist racism, is what it is. If she doesn’t win March Madness this year I’m going on strike down at the fuckin’ dipshit douchebag factory I work at.
“No disrespect to those artists like Adele or Harry Styles who won. It’s not their fault”Spike Lee said this? Dude’s getting mellow.
FFS, they could rename the award the “Beyonce” and the Beyhive would still find something to complain about.
It’s so funny how some old men choose to dress.
Beyonce has won more Grammy awards than any other artist. I don’t understand how not receiving the award in one category, while winning in others, is a snub. There is not snub! She won, lots. Move on.
It’s precisely the fact that she’s won so many awards, yet continues to be shut out of the top award, album of the year, so glaring. If she has won fewer awards and been less of an epochal star, there would be no controversy. A black woman has not won album of the year this century.
Finally, Beyonce that someone in her corner who is easily aggrieved and dramatic. Her notoriously calm, grounded fanbase could learn a thing or two.
*Spike Lee angrily tweets Julia Styles’ home address*(The old AVC Is long dead)
I dunno, she lost, but she did really well preforming at the Super Bowl the other night, so I guess that was a win?
The last time a man decided to stand up for Beyonce and publicly say that she should have won the Grammy went very well for that person, with the public not turning on them at all. So I predict good things for Spike for taking this stand.