Wake up, Grammys !

The Grammy’s have always dealt with criticism and controversy when it comes to their support of hip-hop. It is a genre which is always hugely under-represented especially being that it is one of the biggest and most influential genres of this generation.

This year was no different. Kendrick Lamar, who released arguably the best rap album of the last five years, walked away with no trophies. Instead, the rap categories awards were all won by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis who don’t even make rap music. Yes, they may rap but they’re music is not aimed at the same audience that Kanye, Jay-Z, Kendrick and Drake reach out to. Macklemore is safe rap made for the masses and the mainstream.

As a result of this, when it came to the voting, many people would have felt more comfortable choosing someone who was better known and more popular even if that meant their album was not the best rap album amongst their peers.

Ben from Macklemore himself admitted he didn’t deserve to win in a text to Kendrick which he shared via Instagram. In the text he said ‘You got robbed’ and ‘It sucks I robbed you’ adding later that he wanted to say this on stage but he was cut off by the cue music. Well, I say, if you really felt that strongly about it then it would have been the first thing you said when you collected your unwarranted award and not an afterthought.

Maybe he truly is upset about winning over his ‘friend’ Kendrick, or maybe he knew there would be a massive backlash, so to save his own skin he opted for the ‘it’s not my fault and I agree with everyone’ card.

I’m not blaming the win on Macklemore and I don’t have anything against his music. In fact, I applaud what he represents and the hustle he had to endure to get to where he is today. But surely such a respected award ceremony as the Grammy’s would realise that they make pop music and not place them in a category where they don’t belong.

This is not the first, and probably not the last, time that the Grammy’s has disappointed and angered the hip-hop community.

Over the past week, statistics have been thrown around just to prove how irrelevant Grammy awards actually are because some of the greatest artists in the world don’t even have one. Tupac, Notorious B.I.G, Nas and Snoop are just some of the rap legends who have never received this momentous accolade in their careers spanning decades.

Furthermore, did anyone notice that Kanye, Drake, Justin Timberlake and Rihanna, to name a few, were absent from this year’s ceremony; all of whom were nominated. It seems they’re all one step ahead in realising the shambles that the Grammy’s is in regards to rap and hip-hop, and knowing that they were not going to win, decided not to waste their time. I don’t blame them.

Next year, I am hoping the public cries from the hip-hop community and rappers themselves are enough to shake up the Grammy’s and make them respect and represent the rap industry a whole lot more. If not, it will only be a couple more years until it loses a large proportion of its audience in the hip-hop community, and its importance will quickly come into question.