By Krish Gondhi

Every year, hundreds of musicians and celebrities gather in the Crypto.com Arena to celebrate the past year of music and find out which artists will have a gold-plated gramophone with their name on it. The GRAMMY Awards has quickly built a reputation as the most looked forward to award show in the music industry. Packed with artists from various genres, multiple show-stopping performances, heartwarming speeches, and hilarious hosts, the award show has presented itself as a momentous occasion to the public. Yet, in the past few years, GRAMMYs have been the subject of a lot of controversy. On the surface, the event might look pleasing, but the main focus of the backlash towards the award show are the wins and nominations. Many people have argued that the voting process for award categories is deeply flawed and biased, causing artists to be robbed of their well-deserved recognition. As a result, people have called out the award show, labeling it the “SCAMMYS”, a nickname that I believe is completely deserved. Based on everything that has happened at the GRAMMYs recently, I can confidently say that the awards have become a scam.

During a GRAMMY Awards show, I’ve noticed that the winners in each category are largely made up of artists that are widely known and have accumulated billions of streams for their music, revealing that the voting process for awards is deeply formulaic and artists are more likely to win based off higher streams and popularity, rather than artistic effort and creative appeal. For example, during the 2023 GRAMMY awards, pop artist Harry Styles shockingly received the award for Album of the Year for his album, “Harry’s House,” over Beyoncé’s disco and house music album, “Renaissance.” Although Style’s album was well crafted, it had nowhere close to the same amount of cultural recognition and impact as Beyoncé’s album. Renaissance reminded the world of the impact that black artists have on music in general, and also presented Beyoncé in an entirely new creative palette. The only visible advantage that Styles had over Beyoncé was that his album garnered more streams, However, the GRAMMYs don’t realize that higher streams are not definitive of musical quality. When an album has these aspects that are impressive and impactful, it deserves nothing less than an Album of the Year award, but almost always, the more valuable awards are wasted on nominees who have the highest recognition, and not the highest creativity.

The GRAMMYs have obviously been shown to have a skewed perception of most music, especially that of black artists. For example, one famous instance was at the 2020 GRAMMYs where Tyler, the Creator won a GRAMMY for “Best Rap/Urban Category” for his album, IGOR. During an interview after the award show, Tyler expressed his gratitude for the award, but also stated that he was slightly offended about the award he won: “It sucks that whenever we — and I mean guys that look like me — do anything that’s genre-bending or that’s anything they always put it in a rap or urban category. I don’t like that ‘urban’ word — it’s just a politically correct way to say the n-word to me.”  IGOR was a genre-bending, conceptual, and unique album that was mainly composed of elements such as soul and alternative music. So understandably, he was upset that it was placed in a category named “Rap/Urban,” because it felt like an overgeneralization of black music and undermined his own creative genius. If GRAMMYs continue to operate in the same way, the public perspective on rising black artists will continue to be driven by stereotypes, which is unfair to fresh and creative minds that are trying to flourish in the music industry and gain the recognition they want.

The GRAMMYs have obviously displayed bias towards certain artists in the past, most of whom are predominantly white, which is highly indicative of racial bias. The most famous occurrence of this was at the 2013 GRAMMY awards, where Macklemore, a white artist, won Rap Album of the Year over Kendrick Lamar, a black artist. Similar to the situation with Beyoncé and Harry Styles, the hard work and creative effort of the black artist is being undermined due to the white artist with more status and streams taking home the award. Kendrick’s album, “good kid, m.A.A.d. city,” was far more conceptual, thought-provoking, and emotional than Macklemore’s was, so understandably, “[there] was collective outrage amongst the hip hop community upon the announcement of Macklemore’s GRAMMY victory.” When Lamar got snubbed, it was the first time that people started to realize there is a bias towards white artists regardless of how good the black artist’s music is.

It’s not just the media that criticizes the GRAMMYs; artists themselves have taken to the public to address the corruption that exists in the awards. Recently, R&B artist The Weeknd, whose real name is Abel Tesfaye, decided to withdraw from submitting his music to the Recording Academy, who make the award decisions, in the future, stating that he is “uninterested in being a part of the Grammys, especially with their own admission of corruption for all these decades,” Tesfaye didn’t win Album of the Year during the 2021 GRAMMY awards, but to make matters worse, he wasn’t even nominated in the first place for a single award. His 2020 album, “After Hours,” was conceptually and musically innovative, and Tesfaye even created a character to embody the themes of self-loathing and loneliness present throughout the entire album. In addition to this,  the album had immense mainstream popularity. It reached #1 on the Billboard 200 and contains the incredible synth-pop throwback song “Blinding Lights,” which is now the biggest song of all time on Spotify with nearly 4 billion streams to date. “After Hours” displayed compelling creativity and immense popularity, yet the GRAMMYs didn’t even give it any thought for consideration. It’s one thing for the media to make statements about an award show, but if artists themselves, who these awards are directed towards, are speaking out against major flaws, it practically confirms something is wrong.

Even through all of the backlash that the GRAMMYs have received, there are still many people who support the awards. First of all, many people would argue that instances where black artists were snubbed of the awards they deserved were very infrequent and that most of the time, they got what they deserved. For example, Kendrick won Rap Album of the Year for all the years that he released an album after 2013, which proves the GRAMMYs might not be as racially biased as they are accused of being. In addition, they included a performance in the 2023 awards celebrating 50 years of hip hop with a plethora of rappers who have impacted hip hop culture, showing that they acknowledge the impact that black people have had on music. Many people have also argued that winning a GRAMMY can be life-changing for an artist and can be a huge milestone in their career. Although the aforementioned occurrences and the pride of a GRAMMY award are certainly valid, they are not strong arguments to ignore the existing corruption in the awards. Even though Kendrick might’ve won, he is still a mainstream artist; he is widely recognized by a lot of people and has won awards in the past so the likelihood of him winning again is really high. Despite him being completely deserving of the awards, it leaves talented underground artists out of the spotlight who deserve it. As per the hip-hop tribute performance, many people have articulated that “it felt like the Grammys’ last-ditch effort to catch up to the reality of how influential hip-hop has been to the culture overall.” The GRAMMYs may certainly have valid moments here and there, they still have significant room for improvement on their entire award selection process.

Even though the GRAMMYs are looked forward to by many music enthusiasts every year, the award show is still deeply flawed due to its racial bias towards white artists, failure to recognize creative efforts from black people, and overgeneralizations of black music. Until the GRAMMYs reevaluate how they choose their winners and make the process more fair, they will be held by the media in a negative light and eventually, lose their significance.