Maybe they don’t suck for everyone, but if you’re a fan of hip-hop, you’ve witnessed injustice after injustice at the Grammy Awards. Every February is a reminder that the people in charge of selecting the nominees and winners of the categories from this genre (Best Rap Performance, Best Rap Song, Best Rap/Sung Collaboration and Best Rap Album) are largely out of touch with hip-hop.
In the defense of the selection committee, sometimes they get it right. And sometimes, they’re at the mercy of work that happens to come out that year. But consider this (for starters): In the 17 years the Grammys have handed out a Best Rap Album award, Eminem and Kanye West have won the award a combined nine times.
For perspective, Marshall Mathers has won the award for every solo album on a major he’s released (five total), with the exception of 2004’s Encore, which he lost to Yeezy for Late Registration. West has won for each and every one of his solo rap records.
Sidebar: 808’s & Heartbreak wasn’t really a rap album, and last year, his Watch The Throne collaboration with the Jigga Man lost out to Kanye’s solo effort, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
Aside from Em and Ye, hip-hop’s two biggest and most revered stars, Jay-Z and Nas, have won the Grammy for Best Rap Album one and zero times respectively.
How is this possible???
Jay won in 1999 for Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life, but outside of that, this duo has been shut out. Amazingly, Nas has never won a single Grammy Award. This is a flat out travesty on so many levels. It’s similar to how Shaq and Kobe only have one NBA MVP award each, but Steve Nash has two. When everybody is retired and we look back on this 10 years from now, we’ll all think, “Wow, the media really got that one wrong” (many already feel this way).
This is not meant to slight Kanye West or Eminem (or Steve Nash, for that matter). Em absolutely deserved the 2001 award for The Marshall Mathers LP, as did Kanye in 2005 for The College Dropout. I’ve personally been a huge fan for both men since they broke into the game.
Sidebar: I supported Eminem throughout his career, including the tough years when his music started to slip and my friends said he was wack. And I told people close to me that Kanye would be “the next Dr. Dre” back in 2003, well before his debut release. Too bad I didn’t have a website 10 years ago.
But there is a hierarchy to the greatness that has been thrown out of wack by this committee for far too long. The Grammys have an obligation to properly chronicle the history of rap music, yet they have repeatedly failed to deliver.
For instance, Eminem won the award in 2010 for Relapse, an album that he himself said was trash on more than one occasion! Meanwhile, Rick Ross’ Deeper Than Rap and Fabolous’ Loso’s Way weren’t even nominated. And eligibility deadlines somehow had bookend cutoffs of T.I.’s Paper Trail and Jay-Z’s Blueprint 3 (Do I smell a conspiracy?).
You mad.
In 2008, Lil Wayne was at the pinnacle of the rap world. But his album Tha Carter III was actually the worst of his Carter trilogy to date (yet the first two were never nominated, and somehow the forgettable fourth edition was nominated last year). But not only did Wayne win for Tha Carter III, but it beat out Paper Trail, Nas’ Untitled album, Jay’s American Gangster and Lupe Fiasco’s Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool.
That decision was criminal, to say the least. All of the other nominees were far more deserving.
Several other oversights like this exist (how about the very first year when Naughty By Nature beat out Bone Thugs-n-Harmony’s E. 1999 Eternal AND Tupac’s Me Against The World…ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!!?!), especially when you examine the other rap categories. It could be that since all of the rap divisions are relatively new, that the Grammy committee is still trying to understand what constitutes good hip-hop versus inferior hip-hop. Yet for all the love the selection committee has heaped upon Kanye and Eminem, neither have ever won the Grammy for Album of the Year (both have lost three times).
In fact, it’s nearly impossible for a rapper to earn this accolade. Only Outkast, for 2003’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below and Lauryn Hill, for 1998’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill are rap acts to have won Album of the Year at the Grammys. However neither of these records, nor the three performers involved, are MCs exclusively. True, it is their versatility as artists that allowed them to craft those masterpieces, but the Grammys have time and again refused to recognize hip-hop in the way that they recognize other genres.
Why is it that Adele can win Album of the Year just for singing & songwriting, even though she did not spit a single 16 on her record? This is no knock on Adele either, 21 was dope. But other artists do not have to compromise their style of music to be seriously considered for this honor, yet rappers are forced to contort the delivery of their message to have even a puncher’s chance. Moreover, no hip-hop act has ever won Record of the Year or Song of the Year at the Grammys.
What’s the reason behind hip-hop receiving the unwanted step-child treatment?
It’s hard to chalk it up to blatant racism, as many other minority entertainers have won the most prestigious Grammys, including Michael Jackson, Carlos Santana and Beyoncé. When you consider that hip-hop is a genre that is born right out of Black culture, though, the race factor is hard to ignore completely. This issue becomes even more unavoidable when you take into account the aforementioned support the Grammys have consistently thrown behind Eminem, whether warranted or not.
Maybe it’s politics, maybe it’s harmless ignorance or it just could be general pretentiousness being displayed by the Grammys selection committee. Whatever the case, hip-hop heads such as myself will never be able to fully enjoy this award show. They have gone out of their way to not properly acknowledge the style of music I, and millions of others around the world most identify with, so why should we continue to place this particular musical award show on a pedestal? It’s tragically flawed.
Eminem and Kanye West are great, but the game is bigger than just them. Tonight’s nominees (based on a timetable roughly from early October 2011 to late September 2012) for Best Rap Album are: 2 Chainz for Based on a T.R.U. Story, Drake for Take Care, Lupe Fiasco for Food & Liquor II, The Great American Rap Album Pt. 1, Nas for Life is Good, Rick Ross for God Forgives, I Don’t and The Roots for Undun.
Nas should win his first “MVP Award” tonight. After what he’s been through, it’s safe to say he deserves it.
All of these nominees are deserving, even 2 Chainz (sort of), and Lupe and The Roots are former nominees looking for their first win in this category and are deserving of recognition. But tonight should be Nas’ night (also nominated for Best Rap Performance, Best Rap/Sung Collaboration and Best Rap Song). HHSR’s appreciation for Life is Good has been well documented and his competition this year isn’t exactly Murderer’s Row.
The sad reality though, is that Nas only has a snowball’s chance in hell at winning because Eminem decided not to put out a record this year. Even a CD of him reading children’s nursery rhymes would likely vanquish any hopes Esco had at winning this award. But when you consider what Life is Good has already meant and could potentially mean to hip-hop and the culture moving forward, it’s not out of the question that it may be the Album of the Year in all of music.
Sidebar: Of course, it wasn’t nominated.
Some of us have already figured this out though. Once again, the knowledgeable and perceptive fans of hip-hop are forced to sit and wait for the Grammys to play catch up.