115
THE WEEKND
“The Grammys
remain corrupt. You
owe me, my fans
and the industry
transparency.”
DRAKE
“We should stop
allowing ourselves
to be shocked
every year by the
disconnect between
impactful music and
these awards.”
TEYANA TAYLOR
“Y’all was better
off just saying best
MALE R&B ALBUM,”
after only men were
nominated in the
category.
HALSEY
“I am hoping for
more transparency or
reform. But I’m sure
this post will blacklist
me anyway.”
hip-hop is even more pronounced
given that the genre now sits at the
center of the pop world. 2020’s best-
selling album, Lil Baby’s My Turn,
failed to receive a nod for Rap Album
much less Album of the Year, while
Cardi B says she didn’t even bother
submitting her risqué single with
Megan Thee Stallion, “WAP,” for
consideration despite the fact that
it would go on to hit No. 1 both on
worldwide charts and on many crit-
ics’ year-end lists.
The Grammys’ U.S.-centric ap-
proach to recognition also looks out-
dated in an era in which superstars are
rising across continents, in cities from
Seoul to Lagos. While the Grammys
have micro- categories for all sorts of
American subgenres— Contemporary
Blues, Regional Roots—they still
lump virtually all non-Latin music
into one Global Music Album cat-
egory, forcing the Afrobeats superstar
Burna Boy to improbably battle it out
with the British- Indian classical sitar
player Anoushka Shankar.
LAST MARCH, Spotify recognized
this global shift when it kick-started
its own awards show in Mexico, pay-
ing tribute to the fast-rising icons of
Latin America like Bad Bunny and
Karol G. And in December, the Apple
Music Awards planted a fl ag for a
younger generation, featuring glossy
performances from Megan Thee
Stallion, Lil Baby and Roddy Ricch.
This competition further dilutes the
Grammys’ authority in a year in which
awards shows as a whole are crater-
ing in part because of COVID-19: the
Emmys, Billboard Music Awards and
CMA Awards all hit all-time ratings
lows. The Grammys themselves hit a
12-year low last January.
The one artist most equipped to
buoy the ceremonies this year might
be the Weeknd. After delivering an
eye- popping Super Bowl perfor-
mance last month, the singer saw an
enormous streaming bonanza of his
music. But he wasn’t nominated for
a single Grammy this year—so he
won’t be showing up for the ceremo-
nies. “I have three Grammys,” the
artist told Billboard, “which mean
nothing to me now.” □
COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE GRAMMYS ARE ABOUT AS OLD
as the Grammys themselves. Over the decades, Little
Richard, Sinéad O’Connor, Frank Ocean and many others
have ripped the awards show for being self- serving and
for being exclusionary, especially to women and artists
of color. But these criticisms have reached a fever pitch
over the past two years. Executives turned defectors have
claimed widespread internal corruption, music stars have
questioned the show’s voting processes , and streaming
platforms have kick- started their own rival shows to un-
dercut the Grammys’ unique prestige. “What once was
the highest form of recognition may no longer matter to
the artists that exist now and the ones that come after,”
Drake wrote in an Instagram story in November.
The Recording Academy hopes to salvage some of
its reputation in this year’s ceremony, which arrives
March 14 and features nominations for Beyoncé, Taylor
Swift and Dua Lipa. But the academy’s long-entrenched
structural issues, compounded by fundamental shifts in
the music industry at large,
may make its bid to regain
primacy an uphill battle.
For years, public deri-
sion has followed each in-
stance of white middle-
brow acts triumphing over
culture- defi ning Black art at
the Grammys. (See: Macklemore winning over Kendrick
Lamar; Beck over Beyoncé.) In January 2020, former Re-
cording Academy president Deborah Dugan threw an-
other devastating haymaker when she fi led a formal com-
plaint accusing its voting body of being a “boys’ club” rife
with corruption and favoritism via secret committees.
(She also accused high-ranking members of sexual mis-
conduct and fi nancial irregularities.)
Dugan’s claims were all that other industry power
players needed to pile on to the organization. When the
2021 nominees were announced in November, Halsey,
Nicki Minaj, Drake and the Weeknd all took to Twitter
angrily, with Halsey alleging that nominations were often
predicated on giving “ ‘bribes’ that can be just ambigu-
ous enough to pass as ‘not bribes.’ ” (Dugan’s complaint
alleged that high-ranking board members can push nomi-
nations to artists with whom they have relationships.)
These attacks served as a double blow: not only did they
normalize the idea that Grammy victories aren’t truly
earned, but they also exacerbated a trend of music’s big-
gest stars defecting from the ceremony.
The rest of the nominations revealed several ways in
which the Grammys lag far behind a new era of the music
industry, which has been fundamentally changed by
streaming. The academy’s long-standing iciness toward
Can the Grammys
survive a new music era?
By Andrew R. Chow
TimeOff Music
Dugan’s claims
were all that other
industry power
players needed
to pile on to the
organization
Stars criticize
the Grammys
on social media
GETTY IMAGES (4)
