What is a Grammy in 2024?
Photo by Amy Sussman for Getty Images
The Grammys and rap have never had the smoothest relationship. Whether it be Will Smith and many more boycotting the grammys in the 80s for not televising the rap awards, Drake’s acceptance speech getting cut off, or fans revolting at the likes of Macklemore and Cardi B winning over their favorites. In the past couple of weeks this saga has continued with Killer Mike sweeping his nominations.
The Recording Academy’s mission statement goes as follows, “recognize excellence in the recording arts and sciences, cultivate the well-being of the music community, and ensure that music remains an indelible part of our culture”. My biggest takeaway from this statement is how this doesn’t help me understand their voting history at all and that it’s unclear which the academy values more, cultural relevance or just pure excellence. By cultural relevance, I mean in reference to current American pop culture.
Obviously when it comes to award shows, it’s impossible to make everyone happy and as a fan I understand that. Therefore what I look for when it comes to these award shows isn’t whether they choose the best album, but instead if they are being consistent with the criteria for their winners. In recent years however, they have not been consistent at all. I’m more well versed in the rap category of these awards and this is a rap magazine so that’s what I’ll be focusing on but this seems to be an issue across the board. The way I see it, there have been five main categories of criteria that the Grammys keep flip flopping between for the past 10 years when it comes to their pool of winners and nominees. Those five categories being sales, juggernaut, fixing mistakes, pure excellence and biggest cultural moment.
Sales is when an album simply sold extremely well and the Academy feels they have to give it a nod. An example of this is Macklemore winning with The Heist in 2014.
Juggernaut is when a titan of an artist releases an album and the strength of their name alone wins them the award, this doesn’t mean the album was undeserving but it’s clear that if another name released the same album it wouldn’t get the same recognition. Examples of this include Eminem winning with The Marshall Mathers LP 2 in 2015 or Kendrick winning with Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers in 2023.
Fixing mistakes is when they give the award to an artist who has a career that is more than deserving of a grammy but still hasn’t gotten one. This leads to the Academy giving that artist the award no matter the quality or relevance of their album in an attempt to fix the mistake of never giving them an award in the past. Examples of this include Nas winning with King’s Disease in 2021 or Killer Mike winning with MICHAEL in 2024.
Pure Excellence is when the award is given to an album purely based on quality, without taking into account the relevance or moment that the album created. Examples of this tend to be more common among nominees and not actual winners, however consistency with the criteria for nominees is also important as a nomination still holds weight.
Biggest cultural moment is when the award is given to an album due to the moment it created. Whether that be the breakthrough album of an artist with a core fanbase, an album that broke countless records, the return of an artist that has been MIA for years, an artist successfully switching up their sound, etc. Basically this line of criteria is if the album made a splash or not. An example of this would be Chance winning with Coloring Book in 2017.
Perfect mix is when they balance all four of these and seem to make a very respectful pick. Some examples include Kendrick winning with To Pimp a Butterfly and DAMN., as well as Tyler winning with CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST.
When Cardi B won in 2019, it was simply a mistake because even if you were to explain that it won due to commercial success ASTROWORLD sold more than Invasion of Privacy. When Tyler won with IGOR in 2020, it wasn’t even a rap album so that’s another issue in itself. Now that I’ve spelled it out I think you can understand my frustration. There has been zero consistency in why they’re choosing who they are. Killer Mike absolutely has a career deserving of a grammy but not with MICHAEL in 2024. Even if the winner is going to be based off of who sold the most, there needs to be some consistency.
If we’re going to pick criteria that lines up with the Academy’s mission statement referenced in the beginning of this article, I think the criteria should be a mix of pure excellence and biggest cultural moment. If they want to “ensure that music remains an indelible part of our culture” they need to reward critically acclaimed cultural moments, not just the albums that sold well or sound good. The quality of the album still needs to be Grammy worthy, but cultural relevance should play a role. UTOPIA was a cultural moment. It was the follow up to Travis Scott’s biggest album ASTROWORLD, and his first commercial LP since the Astrofest tragedy. We saw him make the lead single a collaboration with Bad Bunny showing how big of a splash Latin music is making in the states right now. On track 8 he gave us “FE!N” with Playboi Carti, the song that’s been ringing through every single party since July, regardless of the demographic. These are the things that make UTOPIA a cultural moment and not just an album that sounds great. This along with the fact that UTOPIA was amazing and critically acclaimed is why the Grammys failed to live up to their mission statement in leaving Travis empty handed at the end of the night.
As for what it means to win a grammy in 2024, I guess it just depends on what part of the narrative the Academy wants to fix when voting season rolls around.