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    BlakeBortlesandJaymes: Thanos Won Because of NebulaMatthew Allen
    1/30/18 12:46pm

    It carries no weight like “Oscar award winner” or “SAG award winner” or “Golden Globes award winner” for future projects so it is theoretically useless. And no, black folk should NOT care about the Grammys. Why? When does “__- time Grammy award winner” get used other than career retrospectives or obituaries?

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      Matthew AllenBlakeBortlesandJaymes: Thanos Won Because of Nebula
      1/30/18 12:58pm

      Full disclosure; I actually have used the __ time Grammy-winner prefix for artists in my past articles. Like Frank Ocean said in NYT interview I referenced in my piece above, it used to mean something. When Stevie Wonder was winning 12 in three years & got AOTY three times in a row, it mean something. When MJ won eight in one night, it mean something. If you look up some of the AOTY contenders from years back and the competition was WAY better back then. Mainstream music is so unspectacular these days. Now the best music is whatever does NOT get radio play.

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      BlakeBortlesandJaymes: Thanos Won Because of NebulaMatthew Allen
      1/30/18 2:54pm

      I know but that still speaks to my larger point. And you’re a writer so that would be your default in researching a music artist’s history.

      The Grammy Awards are important, but to whom? Do they recognize true talent? Innovation? Critical acclaim? Who are the arbiters of the Grammys?

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    JustPassingThroughMatthew Allen
    1/30/18 11:14am

    Like I said yesterday,what I would love to see is every major Black artist skip the Grammys. They don’t even have to say why they are skipping it. Just don’t show up. Don’t perform. Just nothing.

    Can you imagine how desperate the recording academy will be when all they can hype up for performances is Taylor Swift? Let the Grammys telecast hurt for once and let the world see an all white audience with all white winners and performers. It will be a stinging, boring indictment of a truly racist institution.

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      lilac-iceJustPassingThrough
      1/30/18 11:28am

      Yup especially as the Carters did nothing but sit with their child and they still generated a ton of undeserved press for the Grammys. Black artists really don’t need to be anyway near it.

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      BlakeBortlesandJaymes: Thanos Won Because of NebulaJustPassingThrough
      1/30/18 12:48pm

      I still wouldn’t watch it, tbh

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    VinMatthew Allen
    1/30/18 10:48am

    Should Black Artists Care About the Grammys?

    No. They fucking suck.

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      Pink Floyd Mayweather IIIVin
      1/30/18 11:29am

      Betteridge FTW

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      VinVin
      1/30/18 11:35am
      Illustration for article titled

      Nah, black artists are mostly amazing.
      You can stay grey, tho.

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    lilac-iceMatthew Allen
    1/30/18 10:59am

    This is crazy comprehensive 👏🏾. The point about MJ making a lot of creative decisions with Thriller for that recognition is... uncomfortable, given how far it moved away from the traditional black RnB on Off The Wall, but also because it’s not enough anymore. I know Bey pushed herself with similar, but definitely not sole, motivations on Lemonade after self titled lost (although musically it got blacker obvs). And still nada. The goal post is always being pushed further for us, it’s never gonna be enough while we’re waiting for white validation.

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      iseenherlilac-ice
      1/30/18 12:23pm

      Meanwhile white artists move closer to sounding like R&B and rap, and get rewarded for it by the very same Grammy’s. Bet you anything Taylor Swift’s hackneyed attempts at rapping in her new album will sweep the Grammy’s next year.

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    smoke&waterMatthew Allen
    1/30/18 11:13am

    The Grammys are good for no one. It celebrates mediocrity in all of its ugly forms. Even the people that complain about (so and so didn’t get it, but deserved it) are still almost always based on what they like and not actual technical merit. The real innovators almost never get recognized in their prime. They get lost in the shuffle amidst all the other crappy popular music that everyone loves. And the artists who are really out there doing something special, will get “discovered” when it’s far too late to earn any awards for what they accomplished. We rarely recognize greatness when it stares us in the face.

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      Pink Floyd Mayweather IIIsmoke&water
      1/30/18 11:39am

      I always felt that award shows need to be given something like, at least 2 years after the fact. The hype machine can start early, sure, because the major benefit of the Grammys/Oscars/etc. is exposure, not necessarily the reward. Eg, someone like Esperanza Spalding (surprise omission?) winning Best New Artist when most people had probably not heard of her. But within the year is hardly enough time to give more than a cursory examination to things beyond the mainstream, and not enough time at all to judge historical impact or not to be swept up in the currency of current tastes.

      The focus on technical prowess or innovation has its own trappings, as in the high/low culture divide—particularly when the cabal of voters is so limited. The answer to that is probably simply widening the voting pool—but that might also lead to, as you say, “celebrating mediocrity,” albeit in a way that probably recognizes more artists, even if they don’t get the award. (Eg, voting blocs “splitting the ticket” among obscure acts, and you end up with something like Taylor Swift sweeping every award ceremony because its the only thing everyone knows and can agree on.)

      Really, I just wish “award” shows were simply a celebration of art—mainstream and undiscovered—and the artists themselves. An extend show of samples, or in the case of visual media, clip shows, demonstrating why this stuff is valuable and exposing people to things they may not have seen otherwise.

      TL;DR: I largely agree with you. Sorry for the length.

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      smoke&waterPink Floyd Mayweather III
      1/30/18 12:03pm

      I like your perspective on this. I’m always up for good discussion, so don’t apologize. I agree that, being a musician myself, I fall into the technical trap. I hate to see the truly virtuoso musicians get ignored, but a lot of the time they shouldn’t be winning awards for their wankery. I think people like Jimi Hendrix is a prime example of an artist who didn’t get his due until far too late. Now, he is ubiquitous with changing how the guitar is viewed and played, but when he was young and doing his thing... yeah no one gave a crap.

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    BrynandNessaMatthew Allen
    1/30/18 11:43am

    I stopped caring about the Grammys after India.Arie was slighted. She told a great story years ago about what Sade told her about the year she won. She said she knew it was really her receiving the best light-skinned woman Grammy award and it was a load of bullshit. This was a greater point she was making about the India.Arie-Alicia Keys competition at the time.

    I’ve never liked Alicia Keys so there’s that, but I think Sade spoke to a larger issue of white supremacy and how whites want us to perform our Blackness.

    I did tune in last year because I absolutely adored George Michael and wanted to see how they’d honor him. It was terrible. Adele should be ashamed for the song choice and her inability to step it up -again- for a live performance. I really think they did such a crappy tribute because of how out he was.

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    HuskyBroMatthew Allen
    1/30/18 11:38am

    The Ohio Players have 1 Grammy...for Best Recording Package (for the Honey album, which, I totally get, I mean...well)

    Illustration for article titled
    Illustration for article titled

    one of the best funk groups of the 70s only has one Grammy and that’s for an (hot) album cover.

    bullshit.

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    ReyWilMatthew Allen
    1/30/18 1:27pm

    The Grammy’s are a sham that hold no weight at all. Unlike the Oscar’s which can compel people to watch a movie after it wins one the Grammy’s do not carry the same influence. With the way music is consumed now it makes no sense for any performer especially a Black one to even fuck with the Grammy’s anymore. If anything I know now that if something is Grammy nominated then it is more than likely some overproduced pop trash that was designed more to be used in a future jingle to sell me more shit that I do not need.

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    Mister MaximoMatthew Allen
    1/30/18 12:32pm

    “Who gives a fuck about a goddamn Grammy?” These venerable words came from the mouth of Public Enemy’s Chuck D on 1988’s “Terminator X to the Edge of Panic.”

    Nope. It was Flavor Flav.

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    BrwnskngurlMatthew Allen
    1/30/18 10:25pm

    Sorry, tl, dr. But in short, the answer to your questions is HELL NAW.

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