The Grammys Snubbed the Weeknd, Now He is Snubbing Them Back
The Weeknd is officially boycotting the Grammy Awards, accoridng to a recent statement to The New York Times.
Back in November 2020, The Weeknd fans were going wild over the Grammys shutting the pop artist out of 2021’s nominations. This snub was in spite of the XO star's highly succesful After Hours studio album, which took Spotify's top 2020 spot the with the song Blinding Lights. At the time the artist had little to say about the ordeal, appearing to be mostly unbothered by the lack of Recording Academy recognition. He stated in a Billboard profile at the end of January: “I personally don’t care anymore. I have three Grammys, which mean nothing to me now, obviously. It’s not like, ‘Oh, I want the Grammy!’ It’s just that this happened, and I’m down to get in front of the fire, as long as it never happens again. I suck at giving speeches anyways. Forget awards shows.”
Fast forward to today, the singer-songwriter announces to The New York Times that he will no longer be participating in the awards show moving forward. This decision comes amidst controversy regarding the Grammy organization's secretive voting system and biases against both Black and female artists. The Weeknd told the Times “Because of the secret committees, I will no longer allow my label to submit my music to the Grammys.”
In response, the Recording Academy's interim chief executive Harvey Mason Jr. stated that “we’re all disappointed when anyone is upset. But I will say that we are constantly evolving.” According to the interim chief, the Recording Academy is seeking internal improvements. He went on to say that “this year, as in past years, we are going to take a hard look at how to improve our awards process, including the nomination review committees.” Mason may indeed have good intentions, but The Weeknd is far from the only successful musician to raise concerns over the Grammys' selective practices. Jay-Z, Kanye West, Zayn Malik, and Frank Ocean have all come out in protest of the Recording Academy’s lack of diverse representation on its internal committees.
The issue is also (predictably) nothing new. Back in 2016 when Taylor Swift took home the Grammy for Album of The Year over now Pulitzer Prize-winning Kendrick Lamar, music scholar John Vilanova wrote “Despite the fact that hip hop is arguably the most popular music of our time, when it comes time for the 'real awards,' non-white artists are almost never recognized. In the last 10 years, there have been 17 nonwhite artists nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year.”
Seven years later, Vilanova’s qualms have not been addressed, as reflected by a statement uncomfortably similar to his 2016 one made by The Weeknd to Billboard: “In the last 61 years of the Grammys, only 10 Black artists have won album of the year. I don’t want to make this about me. That’s just a fact.” How the Grammy organization plans to resolve these issues remains unclear.