The Weeknd is boycotting future Grammys

The Weeknd is boycotting future Grammys

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The popstar said he will no longer perform songs for the music industry’s most prestigious annual awards after she refused to nominate him for a single award for her single “Blinding Lights”, which spent 52 weeks in the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 .

The news comes at a time when the organization behind the Grammy faces scrutiny over its secret voting system and alleged prejudices against black artists and women. The 63rd annual event will air this Sunday.

CNN contacted The Weeknd for comment.

The singer questioned in particular the lack of transparency in the voting process for the most coveted awards. Nominations are chosen by members of the Recording Academy, a non-profit organization based in Santa Monica, California, whose members are artists, producers and industry executives and other team members.

But since 1995, the most coveted Grammy awards – including Best New Artist, Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Album of the Year – have been chosen by a secret committee of academy members, according to Billboard.

The committee process was originally set up to ensure that final nominations were more progressive and “musically adventurous”, Billboard reported. But the lawsuit has been criticized in recent years in response to black artists like The Weeknd and Kendrick Lamar being repeatedly dismissed in the so-called Grammy “Big Four” categories.

Grammys rarely reward black artists at the top of the charts with the highest honors, concludes a new study
Only four black artists have won major Grammys in the past nine years. The last black artist to win the Album of the Year was pianist Herbie Hancock in 2008.
A study by the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative revealed on Tuesday that black artists represented about 38% of all artists on the Billboard Hot 100 from 2012 to 2020, but they only received about 27% of Grammy nominations during that period. And only 24% of this year’s top Grammy nominees are black.
They include Beyoncé, who this year was nominated for nine Grammys, including Record of the Year for “Savage”, along with rapper Megan Thee Stallion, and Song of the Year for “Black Parade”, her audio love letter for the African Diaspora .

Asked by the Times why it is boycotting, Weeknd said: “Because of the secret committees.”

“Blinding Lights” is one of Billboard’s No. 1 songs in the past 30 years that has not received a Grammy, according to the Associated Press. The album on which the song appears, “After Hours”, was also neglected.

The Toronto-born pop star, whose real name is Abel Tesfaye, is not the only artist to call up the most prestigious awards in the music industry before his 63rd annual broadcast on Sunday.

British singer-songwriter Zayn Malik tweeted profusely disapproved of the Grammy, accusing the show of having favorites after refusing to nominate him for “Nobody Is Listening”, his third studio album.

“P – the Grammy and all the associates,” wrote Malik. “Unless you shake hands and send gifts, there are no naming considerations. Next year I will send you a basket of pastries.”

Malik said his tweet was not personal, but “it was about the need for inclusion and the lack of transparency in the nomination process and the space that creates and allows for favoritism, racism and network politics to influence the voting process” .

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