The big winners of the night include Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Daft Punk, Pharrell Williams, Lorde, Bruno Mars, Imagine Dragons, Justin Timberlake, Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Jay-Z, Tasha Combs, Tye Tribbett, Mandisa, Adele, amongst others. The Grammys have always been interesting because of the process artists go through to get a nomination. If you think about it Kendrick Lamar's GKMC came out in October 2012 and it is now January 2014 where it is nominated.
Many people made cries of racism towards the awards show. Although I personally feel otherwise it is a plausible argument. Three of the four rap categories were not televised. Not only did that anger some of the viewers but Macklemore was disappointed himself. On his instagram he flashes text messages between him and Kendrick about him being "robbed."
Here are the links to both screenshots:
http://instagram.com/p/jpWPTQQK4z/
http://instagram.com/p/jqXYYAwK_y/
He also got on Hot 97 for a phone interview this morning with Rosenberg and the Morning Show (see below). The only televised category in the genre was Best Rap Song.
Daft Punk ran away with four Grammys last night including AOTY and Record of the Year, with Random Access Memories and Get Lucky with Pharrell respectively. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis took home a very controversial Best Rap Album and Best New Artist. Hov won twice last night but both with the help of Justin Timberlake with Suit & Tie and Holy Grail. Justin also won Best R&B song with Pusher Love Girl. Lastly Pharrell Williams left the night with Producer of the Year award. There was no arguing it pushing smash hits like Get Lucky and Blurred Lines with Robin Thicke and T.I.
The best moment of the night is when the winners of best rock performance, Imagine Dragons performed Radioactive. What made it so special is when K. Dot comes out of the mashup spitting m.A.A.d city over the beat. Twitter was at an uproar. No sooner than I could tweet "They need to get in the studio and make an mp3 of this," Imagine Dragons released an iTunes version of their remix to Radioactive featuring Kendrick Lamar himself. It even got Taylor Swift off her feet.
I don't think the voting for awards was the flaw in the annual awards ceremony. I think the faux pas in the system is the genre of music categories. I grew up raised that Rap isn't a category of music. Rap is a verb, it is the process. Hip-Hop is the genre of music and frankly I would not consider Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Hip-Hop artists. That is not to take away from their talents and recognition. They are just Pop artists to me and many other members of the industry would feel the same way. The same goes for Justin Timberlake and R&B to me. I don't think Pusher Love Girl was the best song the his (amazing I might add) album let alone better than the other nominees. What confuses me in every other category instead of this one Timberlake was considered Pop. Why was this song classified as rhythm and blues? One last question, What is Urban contemporary music? All the nominees for that genre were either Pop or R&B. Are you telling me that there aren't people in rural areas that listen to Rihanna, Fantasia, or Mack Wilds?
All in all, the Grammys were incredible. There are some (major) flaws in the system but we have to realize the flaws rather than point fingers because our favorites didn't win. A grammy award never measures your success as a music artist (it helps), but there are plenty of amazing artists that never won a grammy like Diana Ross, Brian McKnight, Led Zepplin, Snoop Dogg, Notorious B.I.G, Tupac Shakur, The Beach Boys, Nas, Queen, Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Bob Marley, Run DMC, and Busta Rhymes. All of them are legends in their own right. So when you are disappointed that Kendrick didn't win last night despite seven nominations, just remember the Baha Men are Grammy award winners for Who Let the Dogs Out and the before mentioned legends are not with hundreds of nominations between them all.
Your Editor,
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