There are two things I’ve come to realize about music awards shows. First, taste is so subjective that it’s stupid to believe that the art of music can be legitimately judged in any way, shape, or form. And second, awards shows aren’t designed to reward the best acts. Instead, they are designed to attract big name performers to one venue for an evening in order to spike TV ratings and sell commercial time. It’s very much a business, and it has become very lucrative in the past couple decades with the advent of 24-hour news cycles and celebrity-centric blogs. We need crap to talk about, and awards shows give us something to report all in one night. So I know better than to emotionally invest myself into the outcome of the awards, yet seeing Macklemore win three hip-hop Grammy Awards actually bothered me.
I understand there are people who love his music, and their appreciation of him and Ryan Lewis is no more or less legitimate than my love for Kendrick Lamar‘s good kid, m.A.A.d. city album. But if we’re gonna be honest right now, most people will agree that Macklemore’s messages are what gave him the advantage in categories in which it appeared he was sonically-outmatched by his contemporaries. If his message is what makes his music so superior, what does that say about modern day hip-hop and the messages of the other artists that he beat?
When Macklemore won his awards, most people sounded off on my Facebook timeline like this:
And that’s what disgusts me. I’d like to know if this dude has listened to any of the other albums in the Best Rap Album category. Why does he need to belittle the other rappers as making “bitches and hos” music? Is it because Macklemore’s marriage equality and anti-bullying messages are intrinsically more important than Kanye West‘s “pro-Black” record? Or because Kendrick’s retelling of love, life, and loss in Compton wouldn’t connect with a broad (read: non-Black) audience?
See, it’s one thing for people to make ignorant generalizations about hip-hop when they don’t appreciate the culture. I don’t mind them, because they embrace their ignorance of the music so thoroughly, that even they know they can’t be reasoned with. But it becomes extremely infuriating when people who call themselves “fans” of this art form decide to manipulate the grounds that hip-hop was created on, only so they can attempt to fuse our music with their politically correct, non-urban ideologies. As a longtime hip-hop listener, it scares the shit out of me when I see Macklemore, with a special pop flare, sweep the Grammy rap categories. And while I can’t say that his messages are completely contrived to be on the right side of politics, it does trouble me to see that being PC is becoming an important part of controlling the lexicon of the hip-hop culture.
Whoever started that bullshit conspiracy about hip-hop being created by record executives during a secret meeting in some mansion somewhere, so Black folks would start killing each other, deserves to be pushed down a flight of metal stairs. That’s the most anti-intellectual crap I’ve ever read in my entire life. People who hate rap music won’t want to hear this, but hip-hop in its infancy did more to shed light on the problems of our communities than it did to make young men pick up guns and kill one another, especially since crime and murder rates have steadily DROPPED since the advent of hip-hop in the late 1970s. All rap music did was give an honest, visceral, and no-holds barred account of what was happening in our society.
While “proper Black folks” attempted to intellectualize police brutality, and cerebrally explain the lingering effect of slavery on the Black community, there were many young people who didn’t give a damn about being PC and needed to express their emotions in the most candid way possible, which resulted in songs like “Fuck Da’ Police” and “Cop Killer.” We talked openly about our own issues, like so-called Black-on-Black crime with KRS-One‘s “Self-Destruction,” misogyny with Queen Latifah‘s “U.N.I.T.Y.,” alcoholism with MC Lyte‘s “Poor Georgie,” and safe sex with Salt N’ Pepa‘s “Let’s Talk About Sex.” There were countless songs that referenced the ills of the street life, including Nas‘ “One Love,” The Notorious B.I.G.‘s “Missin’ You,” and Wu-Tang‘s “C.R.E.A.M.” Before over-commercialization took over rap in the late-90s, the music contributed to some important discussions that needed to be had in urban epicenters all over North America.
So when I looked at the nominees for “Best Rap Album of the Year” specifically, I was really interested to see who would win, because this was the first year in a long time that the early-90s theme of unique messages came back to the music. Kanye crafted an entire album littered with complex race allegories (no matter how stupid you may think he is, songs like “Blood on the Leaves” addressed very real and current race issues), and Kendrick dropped a classic that featured one of the most brilliant messages of the entire year in “Sing About Me.” I do think it’s foolish to give an artist an award based simply on message, which probably disqualified Drake and Jay Z as being typical “rich rapper music,” which alludes to my point. The real reason folks should be mad about Macklemore’s Grammy wins is because his award was based on ulterior factors that had little to do with who made the best music. We’re all entitled to have our own taste in music, but a music award should be given on the merit of the songs that artist produced.
And before you Macklemore fans get your panties in a bunch, just remember that he texted Kendrick Lamar himself to admit that K.Dot got robbed.
LAB
Lincoln Anthony Blades blogs daily on his site ThisIsYourConscience.com, he’s an author of the book “You’re Not A Victim, You’re A Volunteer” and a weekly contributor for UPTOWN Magazine. He can be reached via Twitter @lincolnablades and on Facebook at This Is Your Conscience.