The Weeknd Demands Transparency From 'Corrupt' Grammys — & Gets Clarity From President
Los Angeles, CA – Kid Cudi already voiced his disdain for the 2021 Grammy Award nominations due to their blatant snub of The Weeknd, and now the After Hours vocalist, who received zero nominations for his chart-topping, record-breaking album, has now made his frustrations with the Recording Academy loud and clear.
Following the announcement of the nominees on Tuesday (November 24), he shared a blunt message on Instagram.
“The Grammys remain corrupt. You owe me, my fans and the industry transparency,” Abel’s text read in the post.
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According to Grammy Chief Harvey Mason Jr., there is no calculated attempt to shut-out any artist, including The Weeknd, from receiving nominations. Instead, Mason told Variety in an interview published Tuesday that there just aren’t enough nomination slots within the big four categories for every artist to receive recognition.
“Y’know, it really just comes down to the voting body that decides,” Mason begins.
“We have eight nomination slots to fill in [the “Big Four” categories: Best Album, Song, Record and New Artist], five in others, and the voters vote for their favorites. It’s really interesting, though.
Mason goes on to explain the same ‘Core’ 20-person committee votes on the big four categories and was tasked with choosing from a pool of 23,000 submissions this year — in addition to affirming hours upon hours of consideration goes into awarding nominations.
“All the records get the fairest of fair shakes. We listen to all the music — even an album, you’re listening to almost the whole album, it takes I don’t know how many hours. It’s a long, arduous process and people take pride in it. The people in that room care: there’s no agendas in there, there’s no, ‘let’s snub this person,’ or that person. It’s about, ‘Let’s try and find excellence.’”
After Hours debuted on top of the Billboard 200 back in March and spent a month at the No. 1 spot. The album sold 444,000 units first week and at one point, spawned berths on the Hot 100 Chart for all 14-tracks appearing on the original release.
The Weeknd isn’t the only R&B artist who is currently livid with Tuesday’s nominations released. Teyana Taylor also delivered scathing remarks about the all-male cast of nominees for the Best R&B album category saying, “Y’all was better off just saying best MALE R&B ALBUM cause all I see is dick in this category.”
Revisit the stream for After Hours below.