Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, the most decorated artist in Grammys history, has never won the award show's top prize, despite several nominations for it. On the heels of her latest groundbreaking album and ahead of the highly anticipated ceremony, one question looms: Will the Grammys finally bestow album of the year upon the megastar?
The answer lies with the Recording Academy and will be announced Feb. 5 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. However, music experts suggest it's important to understand the historical context.
This year, Beyoncé became the leading nominee with a total of 11 nods. Not only is she up for album of the year for "Cowboy Carter," she received nominations in other categories including the country and American roots field for the first time.
"Beyoncé keeps putting out like masterful pieces of art and not getting properly compensated with the album of the year win," says music and culture journalist J'na Jefferson. "It's one thing to get all these wins, but most of her Grammy wins are in the R&B categories, and that stinks because it's like she's doing more than just that."
As fans know, she released the eighth studio album March 29, and it has since made history on multiple fronts and put a spotlight on Black country artists.
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"I think with 'Cowboy Carter' what made it so exciting is that she was defying the conventionality of being a country album," Jefferson says. "I think everyone could recognize that this was a big deal. It opened the doors for so many musicians."
The album also broke musical barriers, Jefferson says.
"What she's been doing with 'Cowboy Carter' kind of shook people up and allows other people, not even just her, to be respected in their abilities to do other things besides the genres that people place on them," Jefferson says. "If you have a white artist who shows that they are trying to do the same thing ... maybe they get praised for it."
However, despite the beloved tunes, ubiquitous sound and history-making aspects of this album, experts say they're reluctant to assume this year will be different than any other.
A.D. Carson, associate professor of hip hop at University of Virginia, says while Beyoncé may be deserving of the top honor the past could be indicative of the future — an unfortunate reality for many Black artists.
"I mean, it's as likely now as it ever has been," he says. "We're also coming off of the heels of what folks were calling snubs for the Country Music Awards, and that's also not surprising."
He says it's simply part of the history of the Grammys and the music industry in general.
"The context is American music, and it is an exclusionary game," Carson says. "The institutions that award them are actively engaged in picking and choosing what they want to award rather than anything like what consumers probably believe deserve the awards. And if that wasn't the case, then we wouldn't be having this conversation right now about Beyoncé."
Jefferson says while she hopes "Cowboy Carter" wins album of the year, she's "not entirely sure if it's going to be (different) because of the same old song that we're always singing."
Beyoncé's husband, hip-hop mogul Jay-Z, called out the Grammys in February for the awards' history of snubbing his wife while accepting the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award.
"We love y'all. We want y'all to get it right," he said. "I don't want to embarrass this young lady, but she has more Grammys than anyone and never won album of the year. So even by your own metrics, that doesn't work."
Beyoncé is the most-decorated artist in Grammys history with 32 wins. This year, she became the most nominated artist in the award show's history after receiving a total of 11 nods at the 2025 Grammys. Beyoncé now has a total of 99 career nominations.
She was nominated for album of the year four previous times for "I Am…Sasha Fierce," "Beyoncé," "Lemonade," and "Renaissance." However, she has never taken home the award. With her fifth nomination, she is the first Black woman to be nominated for album of the year with a country album.
That's in line with the history that has shaped the music industry and its award shows.
"If you think back to Billboards, Harlem Hit Parade from 1942 and then Black music being called race records and eventually rhythm and blues and then soul, and then urban contemporary around the '70s, then you see the thing that we're dealing with that seems to be kind of presented to us as neutral," Carson says. "But of course, it's rooted in racialization. So I don't think that it's possible to have a conversation about the Grammys, or musical genres or even about pop music in the United States without talking about race and taking that into consideration."
The bottom line, Carson says, is that exclusion has manifested in different forms and has been ongoing.
"So how does one become the most decorated Grammy artist but then still not win (album of the year)?" Carson asks. "I think that given that brief history that I just laid out, it makes total sense that a person might be given tokens and trinkets, but then also still not be recognized by the same measures that that system recognizes others."
Beyoncé is far from the only artist who's been affected.
"Actually, if you look at the people who have been recognized, it would almost seem to be like a badge of honor to not ever win a Grammy, given the number of people who are considered legendary hip-hop artists that have never been recognized by the Academy," Carson says.
In Carson's eyes, real change has yet to happen at the fundamental level.
"Until folks reckon with the history and how that history spills into the present, we're going to continue to get the same results that we've always gotten." he says. "You can't get a different product if you continue the same process."
No Black woman has ever won a Grammy for a country song. Four years ago, Mickey Guyton became the first Black woman to be recognized in a country music category when she received a nomination for her song "Black Like Me."
Jefferson felt is was important that Beyoncé was nominated in a country music category. She ended up with four nods in country categories and one in Americana.
"The whole reason that she even did this is because they kept shutting her down," Jefferson says. "She tried to apply 'Daddy Lessons' to be in the country music category in 2016, and they shut it down."
And Jefferson says there are larger implications at stake.
"If you continue to have country leaning artists in these categories, like Morgan Wallen, like Jelly Roll and even Florida Georgia Line ... (nominating Beyoncé) would just continue to show like the ever-changing sound of country music, and it would also show that you're allowing this diversity to shine through," she says.
Both Wallen and Jelly Roll received multiple nominations in country categories.
Jefferson says she's glad that the Recording Academy is beginning to open up to more industry professionals, journalists and content creators. However, she says the final say on these awards still largely lies with a governing body, which industry insiders note consists mostly of older white men.
Carson says: "I think that because Beyoncé is such a global superstar that people might be able to exceptionalize her and then make this into a thing that's sort of about Beyoncé particularly, and not about the way that black women are treated in music industries more broadly."
He warns that even if the "Texas Hold 'Em" singer takes home the night's most prestigious award, that might not be an indication of real change.
"To say that they got it right doesn't mean that they've reformed anything," he says. "That's not enough, given the long history that precedes this. They've been wrong a lot longer than they've been right, even if they get it right this year."
For these music experts though, the album has already received the highest honor.
"I think the true win of 'Cowboy Carter,' if it doesn't get an album of the year win, would be the importance that it places on the unsung heroes and the hidden figures of this genre because of the way that the culture of country music has not allowed them to get their just due all these years," Jefferson says.
Carson says the album speaks for itself.
"The social meanings and the political meanings that people attribute to Beyoncé's music, those will still be there without the recognition of that Academy," he says.
Follow Caché McClay, the USA TODAY Network's Beyoncé Knowles-Carter reporter, on Instagram, TikTok and X as @cachemcclay.