Even Adele thought she didn’t deserve to win Album of the Year over Beyoncé. “I can’t possibly accept this award,” she told the audience last night, praising the immense power of Lemonade before breaking the gold gramophone in half à la Spring Fling Queen Cady Heron. Kanye West wasn’t around to volunteer for redistributing duties, given his boycott of the show over Frank Ocean not being nominated, which he couldn’t have been anyway. He refused to submit his phenomenal new album for a ceremony he’s deemed racist and irrelevant. Don Cheadle, who almost stormed the stage when Kendrick Lamar inexplicably lost Album of the Year to Taylor Swift in 2016, was also relieved of the task. The show clearly has some cultural problems.
Last week, Grammy producer Ken Ehrlich and writer David Wild responded to Frank’s earlier criticisms in a podcast with Rolling Stone. Definitely only escalating tensions, they put Frank’s beef with them down to his subpar 2013 performance, said some vague stuff about “TV moments,” and took a lot of credit for the growth of Kanye’s career. Yesterday Frank responded in his typical way — posting an epic all-caps rant on Tumblr. The Blonde mastermind dragged the show for not recognizing black artists and called out the panel for picking Taylor Swift over Kendrick Lamar last year.
“Yea Yea my 2013 performance at the Grammys was absolute shit,” he wrote. “Technical difficulties, blah blah. Thanks for the reminder. Very much appreciated. Fuck that performance though. You think that’s why I kept my work out of the Grammy process this year? Don’t you think I would have wanted to play the show to ‘redeem’ myself if I felt that way?”
Frank also reveals that he had considered performing at this year’s show to honor Prince, but decided that the best tribute would be being successful. “Blonde sold a million plus without a label, that’s successful. I am young, black, gifted, and independent… that’s my tribute,” he said before slamming the ceremony’s repeat failure to give Album of the Year to a black artist. “I’ve actually been tuning into CBS around this time of year for a while to see who gets the top honor and you know what’s really not ‘great TV’ guys? 1989 getting Album of the Year over To Pimp a Butterfly. Hands down one of the most ‘faulty’ TV moments I’ve seen.”
Seems Frank might understand the Grammys better than its producers do. “Believe the people,” he wrote before noting that he’s more than down to have a discussion about cultural bias. “Believe the ones who’d rather watch performances from your program on YouTube the day after because your show puts them to sleep.” And if there’s one part of the show people are replaying this morning, it’s Beyoncé’s mind-melting, empowering medley of two Lemonade songs, which ensured she won the night anyway.
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Text Hannah Ongley