Posted by | Ray Cornelius
R&B songbird India.Arie is not happy about Kendrick Lamar’s obvious shut out at this year’s Grammy Awards. The 26-year-old rapper was up for seven nominations including “Best Rap Performance,” “Best Rap Song” and “Best Rap Album” but lost all three awards to hip-pop artists, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. For Arie, the situation is just another example of the Grammy Committee shutting out Black artists and Black music.
“If the hip hop community voted on hip hop – r&b COMMUNITY the same – same for each category – we’d see winners that reflect the MUSIC ITSELF. We all know that’s just not the way it goes. NOW the BIGGER losers, are ALL of black music,” says Arie. “Where was the black music community represented in last nights #Grammy show? Performers and Winners (or not) … Where were the black artists?”
The singer also called out the Grammy Committee’s obvious favoritism toward bigger named artists and claims the show is more about “high ratings” than music.
“Though it’s called “Music industries biggest night” the #Grammys are NOT about the music, it’s a popularity contest. The voting process allows people, to vote on name recognition alone – the music industry politics is a whole NUTHER conversation. Too much to go into here,” says the 38-year-old singer.
Arie knows a little bit about being snubbed by the Grammy organization. In 2002, her first album, Acoustic Soul was up for seven nominations including “Album of the Year,” “Record of the Year” and “Song of the Year.” Like Lamar, she too walked away from the show with nothing and recalled that night in an episode of Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul Sunday.
height=350Click here to read India’s entire letter.
What are your thoughts about India.Arie’s letter to the Grammy Awards? Was she correct?
Photo Credit: iloveneosoul.com