The Grammy Review Literally Nobody Asked For
The 61st Annual GRAMMY Awards aired February 11 on CBS. Despite the doubts that this year’s Grammy awards would be dull, due to lack of attendance from big names, it was quite the opposite. This year’s GRAMMY Award Show had some of the hottest names in music in attendance like Drake, Cardi B, Travis Scott, Post Malone, Dua Lipa, Maren Morris, Janelle Monae, Chloe X Halle, Lady GaGa and so many other pop culture staples.
The show proved to be entertaining, culturally relevant, and an accurate representation of the current state of music. Following the trend of many other award shows, this year’s GRAMMYs felt less stiff and more for the viewers, which was much needed for the Recording Academy after last year’s show received a drop in viewership of nearly 6 million.
Performances wise, the show exceeded expectations. With the buzz surrounding Ariana Grande and her since cancelled GRAMMY’s performance due to a dispute with a producer you would think there would be a shortage of entertaining performances, but that was not the case. Some of our favorite performances included
Travis Scott - NO BYSTANDERS
Cardi B - Money
Chloe X Halle - Where is The Love
Alicia Keys - Boo’d up, Empire State of Mind
Dan & Shay- Tequila
Fantasia, Yolanda Adams, Andra Day - Aretha Franklin Tribute
JLo- Motown Tribute (because apparently this is supposed to be reflective of an iconic black owned label)
Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry and more - Dolly Parton Tribute
Awards : COME GET YOUR REPARATION GRAMMY!
Now, for the awards… The theme of this year's awards was “Reparations”. It felt like The Academy was trying to make amends or apologize for ignoring mainstream music and culture in the past, specifically in the Hip Hop/Rap Genre. So let’s review the categories that matter most to the culture.
Album Of the Year
Who I Thought Would Win - Dirty Computer - Janelle Monae
Who I Thought Should’ve Won - Invasion of Privacy - Cardi B
Who Won - Golden Hour - Kacey Musgraves. Don't know, don’t care…
My prediction for this year’s Album of the Year was Janelle Monae’s ‘Dirty Computer, based on signals from The Academy that they were focusing on female empowerment at this year’s award, along with the fact that 6/8 of the albums nominated were hip hop or R&B albums. Unfortunately, this years AOTY seemed to be another chance for the Grammy’s to send a message to hip hop acts that their genre of music is not the most important in the eyes of The Academy (whoever the fuck that is lol). I choose Cardi B’s ‘Invasion of Privacy’ as AOTY due to the fact that we know the Grammys is all politics and it seems the most politically correct. Cardi B, without a doubt, had the biggest year in music. Cardi had reach outside of the Rap genre and while I thought she was the most deserving of this award, we all know the GRAMMYs hates giving hip hop artists AOTY... Do we need to bring up Lemonade and Beyonce's absence since then, or nah?
Best New Artist
Who I Thought Would Win - HER
Who I Thought Should’ve Won - Greta Van Fleet
Who Won - Dua Lipa… I guess?
This year’s Best New Artist went to Dua Lipa. This award was very special as it was the only award that legitimately made me laugh out loud. I predicted that Best New Artist would go to H.E.R simply because the GRAMMYs love to act like they have no clue who R&B/hip hop artists are until after the height of their success. Some of the songs on H.E.R.’s album that the GRAMMYs are trying to seem woke about have been out for almost two full human years. With the announcement of Dua Leap Frog’s win, I guess The Academy didn’t want to pay their reparations in this category. My pick for best new artist was Greta Van Fleet simply because there is a 12 year old girl with an angelic rock voice living inside the lead singer of this band and I thought the world should’ve witnessed that on the GRAMMY stage.
Record of the Year-
Who I Thought Would Win - This is America - Childish Gambino
Who I Thought Should’ve Won - This is America - Childish Gambino
Who Won - Dua Lipa… This is America - Childish Gambino
THIS IS AMERICA. DON’T CATCH YOU SLIPPING NOW (whoa).
Best R&B Album
Who I Thought Would Win - H.E.R. - H.E.R.
Who I Thought Should’ve Won - H.E.R. - H.E.R.
Who Won - H.E.R. - H.E.R.
H.E.R. is one of the best R&B artist in the game right now. PERIODT. I just find it funny how the GRAMMYs decide to recognize her so late. This happens often with categories The Academy don’t care enough about to pay attention to. Lazy and broke, but she got this GRAMMY so I guess I can’t complain.
Best R&B Song
Who I Thought Would Win - Boo’d Up - Ella Mai
Who I Thought Should’ve Won - Boo’d Up - Ella Mai
Who Won - Boo’d Up - Ella Mai
Oooooouuuuuuu and I’ll never get over this song until I find something new, that makes me sing like this song does. The recognition of this song was rather late, but I won't shade The Academy because the life of this song was weird. The song was originally released on an EP Ella Mai put out in 2017, but the song wouldn't take off until this past summer when Meek Mill posted a video of him and all his celebrity friends jamming out to the song at a pool party shortly after his release from prison. This song slaps… Hard.
Best Rap Album
Who I Thought Would Win - Swimming - Mac Miller
Who I Thought Should’ve Won - Victory Lap - Nipsey Hussle
Who Won - Invasion of Privacy - Cardi B
I don't think Cardi B deserved Best Rap Album. I think she deserved Album of the Year. Cardi indeed deserves a GRAMMY win for her successful year in music, but I think the GRAMMYs gave her Best Rap Album to send a message. The message being no matter how successful you are The Recording Academy will not recognize you as being the most important if you come from the rap genre. The last rap act to win AOTY was Outkast in 2004. Meanwhile, y'all gassing this shit up as if she won AOTY, which she deserved and The Academy basically exploited her for views. Go off though about your weird hatred for Nicki Minaj, who is, indeed, a much better rapper than Cardi B lol. Fake rap fans love consuming Black culture when it’s not coming from someone who is actually Black and it shooooows. The negative comments about Offsets’ appearance, an extremely successful rapper in his own right, further proves my point. You been a fan since Bodak Yellow... Weirdos are culture vultures and it shoooows. LET ME MAKE THIS CRYSTAL CLEAR. RAP WILL ALWAYS BE BLACK CULTURE. MADE FOR US. BY US.
I predicted Mac Miller’s ‘Swimming’ would win Best Rap Album because I thought The Academy had a heart… I was big wrong. Rap critics have already declared Nipsey Hussle’s ‘Victory Lap’ as Best Rap Album of 2018. The story of ‘Victory Lap’ is in the title. Nipsey sounds like a winner on this album displaying confidence on every track. My favorite thing about Nipsey Hussle is his lack of gimmicks to achieve notoriety. He didn't need to do a Drake diss record to get attention…. Cough, cough… Pusha T… Cough, cough. Because Nipsey’s music fared well on it’s own.
Best Rap Song-
Who I thought would win- God’s Plan- Drake
Who I Thought should’ve won - God’s Plan - Drake
Who Won - God’s Plan- Drake
As Drake clearly stated, the GRAMMYs are all about politics. Luckily for him the GRAMMYs saw it politically correct to award the most successful rapper in the last decade with Best Rap Song. Yay! They did something right.
Best Pop Vocal Album-
Who I Thought Would Win - Sweetener - Ariana Grande
Who I Thought Should’ve Won - Sweetener - Ariana Grande
Who Won - Sweetener - Ariana Grande
When Hell Freezes Over and Tonya Harding becomes the president of US Figure Skating - Reputation - Taylor Swift.
The thing about Ariana Grande is that even at her worst she still comes out on top. A whirlwind year in 2018 saw Grande learn from the pain and turn out amazinnn’. Sweetener serves as Ariana’s ode to the sweet side of life and really had no competition other than T*ylor Sw*ft, who was “snubbed” from AOTY. .
The controversy surrounding Ariana Grande and her beef with Grammy producers seemed to not bug The Academy that much, and with the release of her fifth studio album (second album released in less than six months) ‘thank u, next’ released on the eve of the awards, we can see way more GRAMMYs in Grande’s future.
Thanks for reading my review that nobody asked for. Until the Oscars... stay crazy, mentalists.