On November 28th, nominees for the 2018 Grammys were announced. Jay-Z and Kendrick Lamar are leading the pack with eight and seven nominations. “Despacito” became the first Spanish song to be in the main categories outside of the Latin genre. Women outnumber the men in the Best New Artist category. No white males were nominated for Album of the Year. This sets the tone for what this year’s Grammys are going to be. Minority groups are finally speaking out when they have been silenced for so long.
Looking at the list of contenders, this year is leaning more towards Rap and R&B artists. Some notable people are Childish Gambino with five nominations including Album of the Year, and SZA and Bruno Mars both tied with six nominations each. This could be the result of the Grammys being criticized for favoring white artists more than people of color. In recent memory, people were outraged when Beck won over Beyonce in 2015, Taylor Swift over Kendrick Lamar in 2016, and Adele over Beyonce in 2017 for Album of the Year. The latter being very notable because Adele outright said she didn’t deserve the award. So she broke off the trophy and gave the other part to Beyonce.
Because of these criticisms, many artists refuse to submit their albums for contention. Frank Ocean didn’t put up Blonde last year and Drake refused to put More Life in the running this upcoming year. These acts of protests are done to show that the Grammys are not as highly regarded as they once were. The Grammys do not recognize the achievements of people of color at the same level as white people. Music is not the first nor the last industry that doesn’t treat white people and people of color as equals. People of color have to work twice as hard to get even the smallest amount of praise. The fact that people have to announce the first African-American, Latinx, or Asian as a headline shows that society has a long way to go to achieve full equality.
Having the main categories be dominated by people of color is the start of a bigger social movement. Maybe we don’t have to see #GrammysSoWhite trending this year.
The 60th Annual Grammy Awards will premiere January 28th, 2018 at 7:30 EST on CBS. This will be the first time in 15 years the award show will be held in New York City.
Here is the complete list of nominations for the 2018 Grammy Awards: https://www.grammy.com/grammys/news/60th-grammy-awards-full-nominees-list