With the nominations for the 2018 Grammy Awards, hip hop and R&B among black and male artists have gotten a bigger clout in the major nomination categories than in the past in the last year in pop music, these genres and artists dominated thanks to the rise of streaming services. This year shows the most dramatic shift the Grammys has taken to embracing hip hop and the streaming era of music.
This move comes after Adele swept all the major awards from Beyoncé at the 2017 Awards, Taylor Swift won Album of the Year for “1989” over Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp A Butterfly” in 2016 and other upsets seen as additional examples of the Grammys ignoring hip hop and artists of color. Drake, Kanye West and Frank Ocean boycotted the Awards by not submitting their albums for nomination last year.
As a result of this shift, big pop stars like Ed Sheeran, who dominated 2017 with his 12 week #1 hit, “Shape of You” and the second best selling album of the year with “Divide,” shocked many by not being nominated in the major categories. Instead in the smaller pop categories, with “Shape of You” nominated for Best Pop Solo Performance and “Divide” nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album. This also applied to Lady Gaga’s “Joanne,” The Weeknd’s “Starboy” and others that many had expected to land major nominations, especially with their throwback sound and mass appeal that the Grammys usually favors.
In the major categories, JAY-Z and Bruno Mars both have nominations in the big three of Record, Album and Song of the Year. For JAY-Z, “The Story of O.J.” is nominated for Record of the Year, “4:44” for Album of the Year and “4:44” for Song of the Year. Bruno Mars is nominated in Record of the Year for “24K Magic,” Album of the Year for “24K Magic” and Song of the Year for “That’s What I Like.”
The big summer smash “Despacito” also received nods in Record and Song of the Year categories for the Justin Bieber English remix. Childish Gambino, the musical alter-ego of actor Donald Glover scored nominations in Record of the Year for “Redbone” and Album of the Year for “Awaken, My Love!.”
Rounding out Album of the Year nominations is Lorde’s critically acclaimed sophomore effort “Melodrama” and rounding out Song of the Year nominations are “Issues” by Julia Michaels and “1-800-273-8255” by Logic ft. Alessia Cara and Khalid.
In the other big category Best New Artist, rapper Lil Uzi Vert, along with R&B singers SZA and Khalid and pop singers Julia Michaels and Alessia Cara, nominated.
The 60th Annual Grammy Awards will be held at Madison Square Garden for the first time since 2003 on Sunday, Jan. 28 and will be broadcasted on CBS Channel 2 at 7:30 p.m.
