Since we're still not getting any major releases, I might as well rant, because that's fun! The 61st Annual Grammys took place on February 10th, honoring the best in music for the recording period of 10/1/2017 to 9/30/2018. While most of the awards I actually agreed with or at least understood, there were the winners of three awards in particular that really grinded my gears.
Two of the four major awards at the Grammys are the Song of the Year and Record of the Year. The song category is awarded to the people who wrote the lyrics and melodies, while the record category is awarded to the other people like producers, mixers, and engineers. This year, the same song won both awards: "This Is America" by Childish Gambino. The song became the first hip-hop song to be awarded either category, and while I'm happy for the genre to conquer that milestone, the fact of the matter is "This Is America" is not an award-winning caliber song. The song has great things going for it, but also things that hold it back. I love the gospel sections of the song that add a lot of life to the song, but the perceived message of the song that it depicts the oppression African-Americans face doesn't even come from the song itself for the most part. What I mean by that is the verses themselves don't really go into depth too much, besides a few lines mentioning how the police might pull him over and how black youth are often exposed to dangerous things like drugs and guns. You have to watch the music video to understand the full meaning of the song. The music video is impressive visually and has an incredible message; it's one of the best music videos I've ever seen. But this is not the Record (Song) and Music Video collaboration award. I'd say this would be similar to giving the award for Best Picture to a movie based off of a fifteen minute scene, say, the introduction of Up. The committee seems interested in giving awards to the most mainstream music possible, and until it really starts to take contemporary music seriously and give the awards to the songs that truly deserve it, I can't be happy at the committee even if they start recognizing rap. I'm not saying you have to give it to an obscure album that sold 50,000 copies in the US. But there's more to rap than Kanye West, Drake, Eminem, and whatever makes it to the Billboard Top 100. But more importantly, I am so upset that Cardi B's Invasion of Privacy won Best Rap Album. I'm not a "sexist" like I've heard Cardi fans say anytime anybody attacks their "queen". But the fact of the matter is her record simply wasn't that good. Cardi B's rapping style is pretty much the exact same thing Nicki Minaj started doing when she was becoming huge. She at least has some confidence and some good and unique production, but she's essentially the K-Mart version of Minaj. I've noticed critics often praise it for how triumphant it is, how Cardi B manages to turn the whole thing into a "celebration tour" and exceeds this confidence like she's managed to turn herself from nothing. But, a thing about that. For starters, she was in a state of semi-poverty, but it could have been worse. She was a stripper and she often rapped about how she's in a much better place, but that was able to provide her with money she needed to get out of her old situation. So she couldn't be where she is now without having that job. And also, it's not like she was a complete nobody before "Bodak Yellow", as she had a prominent role on the TV series Love & Hip-Hop and got popularity from videos on social media. An artist like Kanye West dropped out of college and nearly lost his dream of rapping when his mouth had to be wired shut after a car accident. Eminem grew up in a trailer park in Detroit with a mother who did drugs and was mentally unstable, and he had to try and raise a daughter on a minimum wage job in the late 90s. Jay-Z sold crack in high school and shot his own brother when he (Jay) was twelve years old. The point being, many rap artists faced a difficult past. While it was definitely something that shaped their identity, it would've almost been gimmicky to write a whole album about how they overcame the odds. It makes for repetitive tracks about how much more she has now and what she had to work for to get to where she is. She isn't a great rapper -- for God's sake, this is an album that had the line "pop that p---- on the stove" and it won Best Rap Album. Something just isn't quite adding up. It's terrible, because I knew she was going to win it, and I'm still mad. She won because it appealed to the mainstream, and she was going to make history by being the first woman to win the award. People, myself included, often say the Grammys don't matter because of decisions like this. Grammy supporters often reply with "Well, then it shouldn't matter to you." But the thing is, we want to trust the Grammys. They're the biggest award show in music, and they should mean something. But they won't mean anything until they change their system. It doesn't feel like they award what's the best rap music, they just award what's the most popular. I mean, this is a committee that has given Will Smith four Grammys and Nas/Tupac/Notorious B.I.G./DMX/Ice Cube/J. Cole a combined zero. If the committee wants to earn the respect of people and not be mocked year-after-year, simply giving major awards to mainstream rap isn't going to cut it. Expand the diversity in the panel; are middle aged white men and women REALLY expected to be the supreme judges of a primarily black genre of music? Take a group of 100 people who consider themselves true rap fans, and I would bet that much money Cardi wouldn't get more votes than an Astroworld, Daytona, or KOD. Truly make this an honoring of the best in music, not just the "best" in mainstream music. Finally, anytime someone calls attention to the breaking of gender roles, it ultimately undermines the concept of gender equality by implying that this is an exception and not the status quo. Good night, America.
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