Uncultured Grammys?

In the world of music, the Grammys is the yearly Olympics. Each year in February, artists and fans of music look forward to this prestigious award show. After the 2017 grammys aired, it had a few eyebrows raised, and plenty of questioning wanting to be answered. Beyonce lead the nominations with 9, followed by Drake, Rihanna, and Kanye West with 8 each. It was predicted that each of those artist would leave with at least 4-5 wins, but no one could have predicted the results that left people in shock that night. Beyonce and Drake ended up leaving with two awards and Rihanna and Kanye left with none. Unarguably, Rihanna had the biggest snub that night; some even thought it was disrespectful how the Grammys treated her and her artistry that night. 2016 was one of the biggest year in Rihanna’s career, she released her highly anticipated album Anti in January and from that we got the lead single “Work” featuring Drake. Whether people want to admit it or not, “Work” set the tone for 2016. It was number one on the billboard charts for weeks and noticeably, other artists tried to copy that same island sound but they were not as successful as Rihanna. When it comes to “Work” there are two types of listeners, the ones that think it’s just a dance track that goes off in the clubs, and then you have the listeners that actually take in the lyrics and realize the lyrics are deeper than it sounds. Anti was one of the best albums in 2016 and is considered to be Rihanna’s Magnum opus. Even present day, after it has been released for months, “Anti” is still high up in the charts and isn’t leaving anytime soon. But do these stats or facts even matter to the Grammy committee? Clearly not. You can say that the Grammys are usually predictable, but I certainly did not predict that Rihanna would go home with Zero Grammys that night. They nominated her for 8 awards, so obviously she was going to show up because “Anti” is a great body of work that she’s clearly proud of and no matter how much an artist says that they don’t care about the Grammys, deep down they feel a little bit proud to know that their work is being recognized by this prestigious award show. The Grammy committee has been getting it wrong when it comes to Rihanna for years and it’s tiring. One of the categories that Rihanna was expected to win in was “Best Pop Duo/ Group Performance” but she lost to Twenty One Pilots’ “Stressed Out”. I can honestly tell you that I’ve never heard of that song, and “Work” deserved to win the category as well as others. The Grammy committee has always tried to put Rihanna in a box but that’s impossible because she is so versatile, and I’ve notice that when certain artists don’t fit in the box that the committee wants them to be in, they snub them out of the major categories. When will the Grammy’s give Rihanna her flowers? When she’s gone like they did David Bowie this year? Unfortunately David Bowie passed away last year, the fact that Grammys want to recognize him and give him the awards that he deserves after he passed is very sad. Not only did Rihanna have the biggest snub of the night, they also snubbed Beyonce by giving Adele the Album of the Year award. Beyonce has been nominated for this award numerous of times but never won, and this year she definitely desereved to win that specific award because “Lemonade” had a huge cultural impact, and quite frankly it’s the better album. Even Adele acknowledges that Album of the Year did not belong to her, which shows it’s a huge problem; a black artist has not won “Album of the Year” in years. The committee only awarded Beyonce the urban category awards just to say “yeah we acknowledged the urban community too”, which is insulting. Ever since the nominations were announced in 2016, they Grammys played on this “Adele vs. Beyonce” rivalry for months and had both perform only to give Adele awards for the major categories because her album is “safer” than “Lemonade”, which is absurd. The evidence is also in the rap categories as well. Rap/Hip Hop is heavily dominated by people of colour, and those categories are barely televised and those artists are most likely not nominated in the bigger or main categories. For example, Drake only has one Grammy and he gets nominated here and there but never wins because he doesn’t play the politics like other artists. The Grammys gave him two awards but it wasn’t for the impact he has a rapper or his amazing body of work, it was for a song that they consider pop which “Hotline Bling” is. We live in a world that revolves around culture, and its integrated in music. The current Grammy committee is uncultured and out of the loop, and I think it’s time for a change.

Via google.ca

Beyonce and Rihanna.