The Grammys: “Urban” is Not the Category For All Music By Black Artists

The Grammy Awards have faced their fair share of backlash for many reasons. Fans are often irritated that their favorite artist did not win the award(s) that they were nominated for, or that they were not nominated at all. Celebrity performances gain the Grammys great media exposure and oftentimes they have artists in to perform, largely for the purpose of keeping ratings up. This year, the controversy behind the Grammy Awards was no different than expected. 

But I feel strongly that it is important to call attention to the underlying issue of the Grammy Awards using black artists specifically for the “clout” of it all. Black artists were nominated for awards and participated in performances but the amount of awards that they received was not balanced with the ratings and attention that they brought in. The Grammys hyped up their performances in online advertising, but did not celebrating them with any awards. Yes, the evening did honor the many achievements and great influence of black artists over the past year, but they did not receive any awards for all of their work. And it just seems like the Grammys keep doing this. The Grammys never seems to really respect the work of black artists.

The top four categories of the Grammys never seem to be awarded to black artists, and only two rap and hip-hop albums have ever won Album of the Year. This mistreatment has been happening for too long. In 2016, Beyonce was nominated for a variety of awards but came away with two, one of which was for Best Urban Contemporary Album. The Grammys always does this to black artists, restricting them to the “Urban” category so they can shut them out of winning any awards within the top four categories. This is a big problem.

Think back to Drake’s song Hotline Bling, which won the Grammy for Best Rap Song when it is arguably a song that doesn’t have any rapping in it. Another example is Lizzo, winning the award for “Urban Contemporary Album” when she is mostly making pop music. Tyler the Creator spoke out on this issue, after having his album IGOR, which contains few rapping verses and is full of disco, funk, and R&B elements was awarded Best Rap Album. 

Tyler made this statement I received from Rolling Stone on his Grammy win: “it sucks that whenever we — and I mean guys that look like me — do anything that’s genre-bending or that’s anything, they always put it in a rap or urban category, which is — I don’t like that ‘urban’ word. That’s just a politically correct way to say the n-word to me.”

https://twitter.com/rapcentury_/status/1221693737581137920?s=12

The Grammys can do better. We all can.

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