At the 66th Grammy Awards, hip hop mogul and multi-award-winning artist Jay Z was honoured with the Dr Dre Global Impact Award and the rapper took the opportunity to get some things off his chest.
During the acceptance speech, the 24-time Grammy winner and most decorated rapper, a record he shares with long-term associate Kanye West surprisingly, channeled the spirit of Mr. West when he turned his speech into a tirade.
Jay Z used the medium to question the Recording Academy’s credibility over their failure to get it right most of the time. The rapper shared his early Grammy heartbreaks including his decision to boycott the Grammys in 1998 over the Recording Academy’s failure to nominate DMX for Rap Album of the Year.
“We just want you all to get it right but at least close to right,” Jay Z chided the recording academy while accepting the award alongside his daughter Blue Ivy.
“I don’t want to embarrass this young lady,” he told the audience, “but she has more Grammys than everyone and never won Album of the Year. So even by your own metrics, that doesn’t work. Think about that. The most Grammys; never won Album of the Year. That doesn’t work.”
Although he admitted the award is opinion-based, he believes some decisions are downright indefensible like Beyonce’s failure to win the Album of the Year.
In Jay-Z’s speech, he pointed out the boycott by DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince who the first hip-hop Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance for their 1988 hit single, ‘Parents Just Don’t Understand.’ The duo boycotted the ceremony due to the Recording Academy’s failure to televise the award presentation.
Decades later, artists continue to call out the Recording Academy for ignoring their works, miscategorization, and failing to award deserving materials.
In 2021, The Weeknd tagged the Grammys as corrupt after he failed to be nominated for his album ‘After Hours’ which was one of the biggest albums and had the biggest streaming song in ‘Blinding Light’.
Nicki Minaj also threw her weight behind The Weeknd as she accused the Grammys of deliberately failing to award her.
In the same year, Justin Bieber chided the Grammys for miscategorising his album ‘Justice’ as Pop instead of R&B.
Multi Grammy-winning artists The Weeknd, Kanye West, Eminem, Tyler The Creator, Ariana Grande, Pink, Lil Wayne, and Frank Ocean have all called out the Recording Academy in the past.
Jay Z’s speech at the 66th Grammys is reminiscent of Drake’s acceptance speech at the 61st Grammys with both rappers questioning the Recording Academy’s voting metric.
“I want to let you know we play in an opinion-based sport and not a factual-based sport,” Drake said as he stated that the voting panel is made of people who might not understand the artist and the music they made.
Like Drake, Jay Z stated that artists should not let themselves be deterred by their failures at the Grammys but instead focus on being the best version of themselves.
Jay Z’s speech is the latest in yet another controversial Grammy night when Nicki Minaj & Ice Spice’s ‘Barbie’ was wrongly named the Best Rap Song before it was corrected and Killer Mike’s ‘Scientists & Engineers’ featuring André 3000, Future and Eryn Allen Kane as the winner.
