Good morning! Tulsi Gabbard and Kelly Loeffler testify at confirmation hearings, Ariel Investments is launching a women’s sports fund, and the Grammys finally give Beyoncé her due.
– Music to my ears. Two years ago, Beyoncé set a Grammys record: The superstar became the most-awarded artist in the ceremony’s history, with 32 wins. However, the record served to highlight a failure of the Recording Academy: While Beyoncé had notched the most awards, she’d long been snubbed in the presentation’s most prestigious cross-genre categories.
Last night the music industry rectified that decades-long oversight, awarding Beyoncé album of the year for her country album Cowboy Carter. “It’s been many, many years,” Beyoncé said in her acceptance speech. The 43-year-old released her debut solo album 21 years ago, performed with Destiny’s Child for years before that, and was nominated for album of the year four times, out of her eight albums, before winning.
The Grammys has long faced criticism for failing to award artists of color in its cross-genre categories. Beyoncé is the first Black woman to win album of the year since Lauryn Hill in 1999. “I hope we just keep pushing forward, opening doors,” she said in her speech.
That includes against the concept of “genre.” Cowboy Carter also won best country album, a genre Beyoncé first tried to be recognized in with her 2016 song “Daddy Lessons.” At the time, the Grammys’ “country committee” rejected the track, preventing Beyoncé from being honored in the genre’s categories.
When she came back eight years later with Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé came up against some of the same gatekeeping. Some country radio stations declined to play her single “Texas Hold ’Em.” On the album, Beyoncé addressed racism in country music through her work—she interspersed sounds of her own radio station and highlighted other Black women in the genre, featuring singers Tanner Adell, Tiera Kennedy, Reyna Roberts, and Brittney Spencer on her cover of the Beatles’ “Blackbird.” And this time around at the Grammys, Beyoncé’s peers acknowledged her impact. She’s the first Black woman to ever win the best country album award, and she also won best country duo/group performance for “II Most Wanted,” her track with Miley Cyrus.
Beyoncé encouraged other artists to reject the constraints of genre. She’s the first woman to win across five genres at the Grammys—pop, R&B, rap, dance/electronic, and now country. “I think sometimes genre is a code word to keep us in our place as artists,” she said onstage.
To earn album of the year, Beyoncé had to cross five genres and rise to the top of her craft over two decades. The Grammys ask far less of other artists—but Beyoncé and Cowboy Carter deserve their plaudits, no matter how overdue.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Today’s edition was curated by Nina Ajemian. Subscribe here.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Confirmations continue. President Donald Trump’s cabinet picks continue to testify before the Senate at their confirmation hearings. Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s choice to be director of national intelligence, refused to call whistleblower Edward Snowden a traitor. And Kelly Loeffler, nominated to lead the Small Business Administration, wants to reexamine the agency’s flagship loan program.
- Soccer stake. Ariel Investments is starting a fund to invest in women’s sports, starting with a NWSL expansion team in Denver. The firm’s co-CEO Mellody Hobson will serve as the new soccer team’s alternate governor. Bloomberg
- Funding freeze. Japan is ending funding for a UN panel focused on women’s rights that called for an end to the country’s male-only policy on imperial succession. The country maintains that this is not a violation of women’s basic rights. ABC
- Saying sorry. Emilia Pérez actor Karla Sofía Gascón apologized for her resurfaced racist and Islamaphobic tweets, saying, “As someone in a marginalized community, I know this suffering all too well.” Gascón was the first openly trans actor to be nominated for an Oscar. Variety
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
Takeda Pharmaceutical named Julie Kim CEO. Kim, who is currently the company’s U.S. business head, will be Takeda’s first female chief.
First Farmers and Merchants Corporation, First Farmers and Merchants Bank’s holding company, named Jill A. Giles CFO and corporate secretary of the corporation. Previously, she was the bank’s CFO.
Burberry appointed Charlotte Baldwin as chief information officer. She currently serves as global chief digital and information officer at Costa Coffee.
Citizens Bancshares Corporation, Citizens Trust Bank’s parent company, appointed Alicia V. J. Wilson to its board of directors. Wilson is chief audit officer and VP of internal audit at Southwire.
Securonix, a cybersecurity company, appointed Bethany Mayer to its board of directors. Most recently, she was president and CEO of Ixia.
ON MY RADAR
Why we need more women in the AI revolution Time
The force in women’s sports that’s even more powerful than Caitlin Clark Wall Street Journal
Why are these motorcycle taxi drivers wearing pink? New York Times
PARTING WORDS
“You have to be a little bit, not insensitive, but a little bit ‘asensitive’ to the broader world going around you—know what’s going on, but then also willing to not care.”
— Hali Borenstein, CEO of Reformation, on the brand’s campaign with Monica Lewinsky last year
