Earlier this week the Recording Academy hosted their 66th Annual Grammy Awards show. Among all the other awards given out that night was one called the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award, which was given out to no other than ten-time multi-platinum album artist Jay-Z.
Blue Ivy, daughter of the award winner, also took the opportunity to join her father on stage. During the calmer moments of his speech, Jay-Z discussed the rich history of hip-hop and the struggle that it took for the genre to find its way into the mainstream, saying “You gotta keep showing up. Just keep showing up until they give you all those accolades you feel you deserve, until they call you a genius, until they call you chairman until they call you the greatest of all time. Feel me?” About the perseverance that it takes to make it, and to win a Grammy.
It wasn’t just his gratitude that the artist was interested in talking about though, taking ample time to say this: “You know, some of you gonna go home tonight and feel like you’ve been robbed. Some of you may get robbed. Some of you don’t belong in a category.” This was all due to frustrations that the rapper felt with the award show for seemingly snubbing his wife Beyonce from ever-winning Album of the Year
He also noted that the system the Grammys use to decide just what is an album of the year didn’t make any sense, because Beyoncé has won the most Grammys of all time, and yet never won Album of the Year.
To a lot of rap fans, this sentiment feels very real. It’s difficult to see year after year as the music you consider to be the best in the world is passed up for easy-listening pop music. Even within the categories that they give rap music, such as rap alum of the year, it is very common for the Academy to pass up more conscious hip hop for something that’s done bigger numbers. Like in 2014 when Macklemore’s “The Heist” beat out “Good Kid, M.A.A.D City” for rap album of the year, an album which is widely regarded to be one of the best ever made.
So while yes, Jay-Z’s sentiments might have been a little bit out of line during his speech, any rap fan will tell you that what he said wasn’t wrong. It’s why more and more, rappers are calling out the Grammys for their biased judging processes, and focusing on metrics as opposed to the intangibles that come with any art form, and until the Grammys change their ways, or reevaluate their judging process, I don’t see this problem getting any better for them.
