Blue Ivy has made VMA history.
On Sunday night (Sept. 12), Beyoncé and JAY-Z’s 9-year-old daughter took home the award for the best cinematography category at the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards. The win for her mother’s “Brown Skin Girl” video made her the youngest VMA winner ever. Santiago Gonzalez, Malik H. Sayeed, Benoit Soler, Ryan Helfan and MOHAMMAED ATTA AHMED served as cinematographers for the visual.
“Brown Skin Girl,” which was one of the tracks featured on The Lion King: The Gift, was also nominated for Best R&B Video, which was ultimately won by Anderson .Paak and Bruno Mars’ visuals for “Leave The Door Open.”
The video was directed by Jenn Nkiru and produced by Astrid Edwards, Aya Kaida, Jean Mougin, Nathan Scherrer and Erin Williams. It also featured appearances by several of The Carters’ famous friends, including Naomi Campbell, Kelly Rowland and Lupita Nyong’o. The song celebrates Blackness in every shade, especially for dark-skinned girls.
Before debuting the visual on “Good Morning America ,” the Lemonade singer said, “It was so important to me in ‘Brown Skin Girl’ that we represented all different shades of brown… We wanted every character to be shot in a regal light — Jenn Nkiru came up with the Black debutantes. It was important that we are all in this together and we’re all celebrating each other.”
Blue Ivy received writing credit for the single, which also secured her an official entry onto the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Earlier this year, Blue won a Grammy award for the hit song, making her the second-youngest artist to ever win a Grammy. Leah Peasell won back in 2001 at the age of 8 for her work on the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou? Blue, her mother, SAINt JHN and WizKid, beat out Future and Drake’s “Life is Good,” Anderson Paak’s “Lockdown”, Harry Styles’ “Adore You” and Woodkid’s “Goliath” in the Best Music Video category.
Congrats to Blue Ivy! To see a list of all VMA winners, click here.