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WARNING: Some of the songs mentioned below may contain profane lyrics. 

By Eric McDaniel

The 63rd annual Grammy Awards ceremony took place on March 14. The Grammy Awards are awards given out by the Recording Academy, which is supposed to recognize the best artists, music videos, songs, and albums of each year. Most years, these awards spur great controversy, which leads many people to question the nomination and voting process. 

The voting process starts off with artists and record companies submitting their own entries for songs, albums, and videos that they believe are “Grammy worthy.” These submissions get reviewed for eligibility and categorized by 350 music experts, and then the submissions get categorized by genre. After the submissions are categorized, members of the Recording Academy may vote in up to 15 categories across the various genres and in general subjects such as Record of The Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist. Ballots are tabulated by the independent accounting firm of Deloitte.

Photo credit: Don Emmert.

Megan Thee Stallion, famous for her “infectious confidence and her jaw-dropping lyrics,” came home with the Rap Song of the Year award this year. Her track, “Savage,” the song that blossomed all over the app Tik-Tok, won the award.

Some Collegiate students, however, are not big fans of Megan. 

Brent Hailes (‘22) said, “I hardly see any talent in her music. She only sings about female parts in an X-rated way, and other sexual references. Sadly, that’s what qualifies for music nowadays.” Other songs that got nominated for the award include Roddy Rich’s, “The Box,” DaBaby’s “Rockstar,” Drake’s “Laugh Now Cry Later,” and Lil Baby’s “The Bigger Picture.”

My personal favorite albums of 2020 were NBA YoungBoy’s Top and Until I Return, as well as Polo G’s The Goat, Pop Smoke’s Shoot For the Stars Aim For the Moon, Lil Uzi Vert’s Eternal Atake, Lil Baby’s My Turn, and Westside Gunn’s Pray for Paris.

“Rockstar” and “The Box” also gained popularity through Tik-Tok. In Lil Baby’s “The Bigger Picture,” he raps in response to the killing of George Floyd, bringing attention to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Megan Thee Stallion winning Rap Song of the Year over Lil Baby bothered some local rap fans. Hank Shield (‘22) said, “Megan Thee Stallion’s music has little to no importance behind it. Meanwhile, rappers like Lil Baby rap about the internal turmoil that is systematic racism.” 

Matthew Rowe  (‘21), who also believed Lil Baby should have won for Rap Song of the Year, emphasized his hate for Megan Thee Stallion by saying, “Megan is an F-tier trash artist with unoriginal, disturbing lyrics and a cringe teenage girl audience that gives her a platform for her atrocious music to be nominated for the rigged award show that is the Grammys.” Bryson Raquet (‘21) said, “I would rather listen to white noise for 12 hours than a Megan Thee Stallion song.” 

This was not the only controversy that came from 2020’s Grammy Awards. Canadian R&B/soul artist The Weeknd’s song “Blinding Lights,” which was Spotify’s top streamed track of 2020, did not receive any Grammy nominations. The Weeknd perform in the Super Bowl halftime show early this year, in what was arguably pop music’s “biggest big-tent moment.” The Weekend is no longer having his record label submit entries for the Grammy awards in response to his snub.

The Grammys have been facing years of accusations of bias against African-American artists and women, which could explain Megan Thee Stallion’s victory as compensation for the lack of African-American women to take home the award in the past. This could also explain 2019’s Grammy Awards, as Bronx-raised female artist Cardi B took home the Rap Album of the Year with her project Invasion of Privacy. She won this award over Travis Scott’s Astroworld, which led to many Travis Scott fans taking action on Twitter, saying things such as “Cardi B winning over Travis Scott is a crime.” 

When it comes down to it, fans are frustrated because they have no say in who wins the awards. Fans question the credibility of the voting committee as fan favorites get snubbed year after year. Former Recording Academy Chief Deborah Duncan claimed the Grammys are “filled with corruption” moments before she was fired. Some artists and record labels have stopped submitting entries due to the apparent corruption, which ultimately lessens the value of the awards.

Featured image credit: Cliff Lipson/CBS.