The Grammys were back for its 61st awards ceremony and just like previous years before, it brought in various opinions on who deserves music’s most prestigious awards.
Alicia Keys hosted the Grammys this year, and for being a first time host for a big award show she did an amazing job. She started by introducing Michelle Obama, Jennifer Lopez, Lady Gaga, and Jada Pinkett Smith to celebrate “the greatness in each other.” Along with being a host she was also performing, she showed her talent once again with a stunning performance while playing two pianos at once.
While the night was filled with many great performances by Miley Cyrus and Shawn Mendez, Lady Gaga, Post Malone, Cardi B, and many more, the night however ended with some controversy over some of the show’s winners in the top categories.
The award for Album of the Year went to country singer Kacey Musgraves’s “Golden Hour”, she also won for best country album, Best New Artist went to Dua Lipa, Best R&B went to H.E.R by H.E.R, Best Rap song went to Drake’s “Gods Plan” and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance went to “Shallow” by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper.
While some of these winners were praised like Record and Song of the Year, “This is America” by Childish Gambino, others were not so well received.
Cardi B won for Best Rap Album over the deceased Mac Miller, which prompted Ariana Grande to chime in, by tweeting then deleting a series of tweets criticizing the Grammy’s decision of inviting Mac Miller’s family to the show when they knew he was not going to win.
This caused fans on Twitter and Instagram to bombard Cardi B with messages and comments that she did not deserve to win over Mac Miller. The comments got so bad that Cardi B once again deleted her Instagram.
The hate on Cardi B does not make much sense, her album, Invasion of Privacy, went double platinum. She was the first female recording artist to have all songs on an album certified gold or higher by the RIAA.
With this win Cardi B became the first solo female artist to win in the Best Rap Album category, which is a big accomplishment considering this is her debut studio album. Also for the fact that she found out she was pregnant with her first child, with Migo’s group member Offset, while recording her album.
Where is the hate coming from? I believe that the hate comes from the fact that many view her as “ghetto” and uneducated, because of the way she talks, her misspelling and misuse of some words as well as the fact that she was a stripper. It seems to irritate people and get under their skin.
The loss of Mac Miller was hard on many fans, and his fellow artists especially due to the nature that he died. His album was obviously good enough to be nominated and it did deserve to be nominated, but he was just up against people who had better albums. The decision to invite his family by the Grammy’s was not a disrespectful move, but rather just an extension of the invitation that is given to every nominee.
The idea of having your favorite recording artist not win a Grammy is hard for any fan. To some, music is a powerful and sensitive subject that they hold close, especially in a case like this where one recording artist has recently died. However, it still should not be acceptable to bully another recording artist for winning something they truly worked hard for.
