Drake Removes His Nominations From the 2022 Grammys
When the Grammys released their nominee list on November 23rd, many fans were excited to see Drake vs. Kanye square off in the Best Rap Album category. Unfortunately, it looks like that won’t be happening any time soon. According to Variety, Drake has removed his 2022 Grammy nominations from both categories. As of yet, he hasn’t made any statements regarding his decisions.
Though Drake’s decision may surprise some, if you can recall, he and the Grammys haven’t always seen eye to eye.
In 2014 Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, Jay Z, Drake, and music duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis were all nominated for Best Rap Album at the 56th Grammy’s. At the time, Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d city, had already been deemed a classic, and Drake’s Nothing Was The Same had social media in a chokehold, with users reciting the rappers Quotables in every other post. But as the Grammys do, they looked over the culturally impactful albums and chose, you guessed it, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis.
After winning the award for Best Rap Album, Macklemore posted a screenshot of a text he sent to Kendrick Lamar.
“You got robbed. I wanted you to win. You should have. It’s weird and sucks that I robbed you. I was gonna say that during the speech. Then the music started playing during my speech and I froze. Anyway, you know what it is. Congrats on this year and your music. Appreciate you as an artist and as a friend. Much love”
Well, Drake wasn’t too happy about the text message. He responded to the Grammy snub in an interview with Rolling Stone. “ I was like, ‘You won. Why are you posting your text message? Just chill. Take your W, and if you feel you didn’t deserve it, go get better — make better music.’ It felt cheap. It didn’t feel genuine.” He continued, wondering why the text was sent in the first place. “To name just Kendrick? That sh*t made me feel funny. No, in that case, you robbed everybody. We all need text messages!”
If that situation wasn’t enough, while giving his acceptance speech at the 2019 Grammys for Best Rap Song, “God’s Plan,” he was cut off mid-sentence after dissing the Grammys on live television.
“I wanna let you know we play in an opinion-based sport, not a factual-based sport, so it’s not the NBA where at the end of the year you’re holding a trophy because you made the right decisions and won games. This is a business where sometimes, you know, it’s up to a bunch of people that might not understand, you know what a mixed-race kid from Canada has to say..” He ended his speech with, “If there’s people who have regular jobs who are coming out in the rain and snow, spending their hard-earned money to buy tickets to come to your shows: you don’t need this right here, I promise you, you already won,” he stated while pointing to the Grammy.
This bold statement may or may not have caused the Grammys to cut his speech short. But either way, I understand Drake’s frustration.
