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After boycotting this year’s Grammys in protest because he thinks the institution is out of touch and racist, Drake has continued his war on the Recording Academy.
In an interview on his label OVO’s podcast this week, the Canadian rapper and singer admitted that he would have preferred not to receive the two Grammys he was awarded for Hotline Bling; Best Rap/Sung Performance and Best Rap Song.
“Even though Hotline Bling is not a rap song, the only category they can manage to fit me in is a rap category,” he said. “Maybe because I’ve rapped in the past or because I’m black, I can’t figure out why. I won two awards but I don’t even want them, because it just feels weird for some reason.”
“I want to be like Michael Jackson. I want to be like artists that I looked up to. Those are pop songs, but I never get any credit for that,” he explained.
Drake was joined by Kanye West, Frank Ocean and Justin Bieber, who all boycotted this month’s ceremony and expressed the sentiment that the Grammys does not equally celebrate young or non-white artists. Ocean published a scathing post on his website explaining his reasons for not submitting his own music to the academy for consideration, which was tweeted by Solange Knowles after Beyonce missed out on Album Of The Year for Lemonade, the award instead going to Adele.
Grammys president Neil Portnow responded to the accusations of racial bias, denying that the Grammys has “a race problem”. It’s always hard to create objectivity out of something that’s inherently subjective, which is what art and music is about,” he told Pitchfork. “We do the best we can.”
