They don't know anything about rap music. Our boycott was to open their eyes to rap music so next year, some rapper will be able to perform at the Grammys and the awards will be televised because the music is large enough and important enough to be on the show. | | | | Grammys just don't understand: The first hip-hop act to win a Grammy—and the first to boycott the show.
(Jim Steinfeldt/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “They don't know anything about rap music. Our boycott was to open their eyes to rap music so next year, some rapper will be able to perform at the Grammys and the awards will be televised because the music is large enough and important enough to be on the show.”
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| | rantnrave:// The elephant in the room at the GRAMMY AWARDS Sunday night may be the elephants who aren't in the room. Pop elephants. Hip-hop elephants. We'll see what other elephants. A year after Grammy infamously exposed its female problem, one of pop's reining female stars, ARIANA GRANDE, whose fifth album comes out today, who's up for two awards and who's featured in promos for Sunday's awards, won't be in the room as a result of a disagreement over her live performance. If the insider reports are true—and no one has disputed them—it's because an older man tried to tell her what to play. On Thursday, the disagreement turned into public beef between Grande and longtime Grammy producer KEN EHRLICH. "it was when my creativity & self expression was stifled by you, that i decided not to attend," she tweeted, following up with a NANCY PELOSI-ish "i hope the show is exactly what you want it to be and more." Hip-hop, which has been beefing with the Grammys in varying degrees of intensity for 30 years, is taking at least a partial pass on the ceremony, with DRAKE, KENDRICK LAMAR and CHILDISH GAMBINO all turning down offers to perform. Between them, they have eight nominations in the show's marquee categories. You won't be able to blame the RECORDING ACADEMY for 21 SAVAGE's absence—he's nominated for RECORD OF THE YEAR along with POST MALONE—but you can blame the same America that Childish Gambino raps about in the song that he chose not to perform on the show. The implicit beef that he and his peers have with the Grammys is that they're part of that same America. It won't be a coincidence that all those rappers, 21 Savage included, will be sitting this one out. It isn't that the Recording Academy isn't trying. The Academy has taken concrete steps in the past year to address its shortcomings, creating a task force on inclusion and diversity, proactively trying to diversify its voting membership and adding nominees in the top categories to make sure they're diverse, too. The ALBUM OF THE YEAR nominees include five women and six hip-hop and R&B albums. But the final award to be presented at Academy president NEIL PORTNOW's final Grammys is a bit of a minefield, too. Every "right" choice is someone else's "wrong" choice. And both sides may be right... Diversity starts, or doesn't, at the top. There are more women nominated in the top four Grammy categories than there are solo women on BILLBOARD's POWER 100 list of the industry's movers and shakers, unveiled Tursday night. Sixty-nine of the top 100 slots are either men or groups of men, and 11 are women or groups of women. The other 20 are mixed groups, which typically look something like this. Sincere kudos to those represented in this list who are doing the work. But as always, the list is as much about who isn't on it as who is. There's a separate list of the New Power Generation of industry disruptors—20 men and five women. I count because I care... There are even fewer women of note in LORDS OF CHAOS, JONAS ÅKERLUND's black-comic take on Norwegian black metal and the awful men who created it, in theaters today (adapted from the 1998 book of the same title). It's BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY except the protagonist is a confused, out-of-his-depth faux nihilist, his death comes not from AIDS but from his Hitler Youth bass player, and there are no audience sing-alongs. Also, dead cats. The tone is weird, the story weirdly amusing (in a not always amusing way), and I'm pretty sure our friends at GUNPOWDER & SKY, who are distributing the VICE FILMS movie, have a future cult classic on their hands, bad reviews and all... AEG + SMG = world's largest venue company... It's FRIDAY and that means new music from ARIANA GRANDE, ANGEL BAT DAWID, JESSICA PRATT, JEREMY DENK, PANDA BEAR, MERCURY REV, MAVIS STAPLES, WIZ KHALIFA & CURREN$Y, ISABELLE BROWN, LCD SOUNDSYSTEM, CASS MCCOMBS, AJ TRACEY, MICHAEL CHAPMAN, SEAN PRICE & SMALL PROFESSOR, YAK, BOB MOULD, HAUSCHKA, HEALTH, XIU XIU, COSEY FANNI TUTTI, JOZEF VAN WISSEM & JIM JARMUSCH, LEMONHEADS and various artists including BILLIE EILISH, BECK and JESSIE REYEZ performing MUSIC INSPIRED BY THE FILM 'ROMA'... RIP GUY WEBSTER. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| | | record of the year = artists/producers/engineers |
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 | Billboard |
| The streaming-fueled comeback of recorded music is expanding the entire business, shaking up established hierarchies and creating new kingmakers. This year, 55 fresh faces join Billboard's annual ranking of industry influence. PLUS: The New Power Generation -- 25 disrupters who will define the future of the business. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| Emmy-Award winning producer Ken Ehrlich is one of the busiest men in show business. On any given Sunday between now and Easter, four massive music productions will bow on primetime all bearing the stamp of Ken Ehrlich Productions. | | |
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 | MTV News |
| Just as their parents saw the U.S. as the land of opportunity, Korean Americans with pop-star dreams now see Korea as a place to make it big. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| The singer-guitarist felt stuck creatively and typecast as a bluesman. To move forward, he had to free up his sound and tap into the rage he felt living in Trump’s America. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| If the Eagles or Marvin Gaye fan in your life is complaining about this year’s Grammy songs, this might be why. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| Chart-toppers used to focus on long-players. Now, in the streaming era, they can release tracks whenever they like -- and many, including Ariana Grande, have decided to do just that. | | |
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 | Harper's Bazaar |
| The rapper talks fame, family, and whether she’ll ever get back together with Offset. | | |
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 | San Francisco Chronicle |
| Kevin Durant was perplexed when hip-hop music started thumping through the sound system at his first Warriors practice in September 2016. It was quite the contrast from his workouts with Oklahoma City, where the bounce of balls and the squeak of sneakers comprised most of the background noise. | | |
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 | The Atlantic |
| Kacey Musgraves and Brandi Carlile will compete for Album of the Year against the award show’s most snubbed genres. | | |
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| Billboard |
| As the show gears up to air Sunday, Feb. 10, it’s worth wondering whether the Grammys have ever, in three decades, given heavy metal a fair shake. Has any real progress been made since the Tull blaspheming, or is the ceremony’s most assailing category forever doomed to shred into the void? | | |
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| | | song of the year = composers |
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 | XXL |
| It wasn't long ago that the world of fashion shunned hip-hop. Now, luxury brands are using rappers as ambassadors. So, why did fashion brands make the switch? | | |
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 | Stereogum |
| Jonas Åkerlund's new movie 'Lords Of Chaos' didn't need to happen. | | |
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| Rolling Stone |
| Hayden Pedigo’s public service aspirations started as a joke. Now he might actually win. | | |
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 | Variety |
| Why is R&B back? Because it was missed. Sometimes you want a melody. You want to look in the mirror and sing your heartache away. You can rap about it and that’s great, but there’s nothing like a fabulous R&B hook. | | |
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| The New York Times |
| The awards show made a series of changes in the past year to address its lack of diversity. But whether new nominees will win - or big names will show up - isn’t guaranteed. | | |
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 | MarketWatch |
| The ‘On to the Next One’ producer on monetizing music, taking a break from the industry and graduating from Harvard Business School. | | |
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 | Vulture |
| Pop fandom can be warfare. Rivalries and chart battles require you to pick a side, to "get off the fence" and throw your support behind a winner. These wars have been raging for decades. In the '60s, it was the Beatles versus the Stones. | | |
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 | GQ |
| "THIS SONG'S GONNA GET STUCK INSIDE YO / THIS SONG'S GONNA GET STUCK INSIDE YO / HEAAAAD." | | |
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 | The Quietus |
| Suzanne Ciani is an important an innovative figure in the history of electronic music, being one of the first owners and users of the Buchla modular synthesizer. Here she talks about the importance of spirituality in her practice. | | |
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 | Pitchfork |
| From the perfection of “Shallow” to, well, Greta Van Fleet. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince |
| | Philadelphia freedom circa 1987. |
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