Recap: Women Take Up The Stage On This Year's Grammy Awards

By Jennifer Kornreich, the BU News Service

March 15, 2021

BOSTON — The 63rd Annual Grammy Awards on Sunday saw big wins for female artists including Beyoncé, H.E.R. and Billie Eilish, with four women winning the top five categories.

Hosted by the “Daily Show’s” Trevor Noah at the Los Angeles Convention Center, the event featured nominees and performers, but had no in-person audience.

Beyoncé was awarded four Grammy Awards, including Best R&B Performance for “Black Parade,” making her the most Grammy-decorated female artist of all time with 28 wins. The title was previously held for nearly a decade by country artist Alison Krauss, who hit 27 Grammy wins in 2012.

Megan Thee Stallion, rapper and self-professed “hot girl”, won Best Rap Song of the year with her TikTok-famous “Savage,” making her the first woman to win the award. She was also crowned Best New Artist by queen Beyoncé, who presented her with the award.

The Hustonian rapper’s career took off in 2020 with the release of her EP “Suga,” which includes her award-winner “Savage.”

In her acceptance speech, the artist honored the other nominees in the Best New Artist category, including Doja Cat and Phoebe Bridgers.

“I don’t want to cry, but first of all I wanna say everybody is amazing,” she said., “Every artist that was nominated for this award is so amazing, so shout out to all of y’all.”

Thee Stallion also performed at the awards, putting on a burlesque-inspired set that featured rapper Cardi B with a tamped-down version of the explicit hit “WAP.”

Other performances included Harry Styles’s “Watermelon Sugar,” sister pop-folk trio Haim’s “The Steps,” and Dua Lipa and DaBaby’s “Levitating” and “Don’t Start Now” mashup.

For the third time in her career, Taylor Swift took home the most prestigious win of the night with Album of the Year for quarantine-produced “Folklore.” She previously won the coveted award in 2008 for “Fearless” and 2014 for “1989.”

Teen electro-pop artist Billie Eilish took home two of her four nominated Grammys including Record of the Year for “Everything I Wanted,” which focuses on the shock of her sudden fame. Fans celebrated the wins on Twitter, praising the young artist’s success.

billie eilish only 19 with 6 grammys to her name. that’s not something everyone can say, shes worked so hard for all of this and we’re all so extremely proud of her. pic.twitter.com/HdNYdF95vE
— billie loops (@eilishloop) March 14, 2021

BILLIE EILISH HAS SEVEN I REPEAT SEVEN GRAMMYS AND SHE’S 19 YEARS OLD THIS GIRL IS A FREAKING LEGEND
— kata is on limit (@gxldenhabit93) March 15, 2021

Eilish now has a total of seven Grammy awards after last night’s ceremony. Last year, she won five awards with her 2019 debut album “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” The album’s production is outlined in a personal documentary, “Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry,” which was released in February.

Contemporary R&B artist H.E.R. took home the Song of the Year award for “I Can’t Breathe.” Released on Juneteenth, the song accompanied the Black Lives Matter protests that sprung up across the country in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

During her acceptance speech, H.E.R. called for the energy of the 2020 protests to come back, saying that there is still work to be done.

“You know that fight we had in Summer 2020? Keep that,” she said.

Hours after the artist’s Grammys win, The Academy announced H.E.R.‘s Oscar nomination for her song “Fight for You,” part of the soundtrack of the 2021 movie “Judas and the Black Messiah,” a historical drama about the Black Panther Party in 1960’s Chicago. She celebrated the Original Song nomination on Twitter.

WOKE UP TO AN OSCAR NOMINATION!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!!! GOD IS SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!! @JATBMFilm #JudasAndTheBlackMessiah #Oscars #OscarNoms pic.twitter.com/4zKxyxhId4
— H.E.R. (@HERMusicx) March 15, 2021

Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande won Best Duo/Group Performance for “Rain on Me,” marking the first time this award has gone to a female-only group, and “Future Nostalgia,” Dua Lipa’s 2020 techno-dance-pop album, was awarded Best Pop Vocal Album, marking the English singer’s third Grammy.

The only male winner in the top five categories of the night was Harry Styles, who took home his first Grammy award of Best Pop Solo Performance for his pop-hit “Watermelon Sugar.”

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