“R&B and Black music is such a wide variety,” he said.
In a Rolling Stone cover story earlier this year, Tesfaye criticized the category as being a blanket award for music made by predominantly Black artists. The Progressive R&B Album slot is what used to be called Best Urban Contemporary Album – an award that Tesfaye has won previously. The Recording Academy forgot to set its collective PVR.Īs surprising as it is that the Weeknd failed to land a nomination in the Big Three general categories, his omission from the pop and R&B categories was glaring. The label pushed Tesfaye in front of the world. It wasn’t Tesfaye’s trembling falsetto alone that got him prime gigs on Saturday Night Live and the upcoming Super Bowl halftime show. The Weeknd’s record label, Republic, can’t be blamed for dropping the ball here. Hip-hop superstar Drake also picked up three nominations. Montreal producer-musician Kaytranada picked up three nods, including one in the high-profile Best New Artist category. 31, 2021) is Justin Bieber, with four nominations. Leading the Canadian delegation to the 63rd Grammys (to be held Jan. Blinding Lights lacks any such social or political import. She scored nine nominations, more than anyone else. Beyoncé's anthem about Black pride was released on Juneteenth, the holiday that celebrates the emancipation of those who had been enslaved in the United States. It’s interesting that the Weeknd, an artist of Ethiopian ancestry, was nudged out by those songs in particular. The surprise nominees in the top record category are Beyoncé's Black Parade and Black Pumas’s Colors, both with racially motivated lyrical themes. The latter category usually favours big sellers Blinding Lights was absolutely that. The album has spawned four singles, including the ubiquitous Blinding Lights, rightfully perceived as a frontrunner in both Song of the Year and Record of the Year categories. Since its release on March 20, the well-reviewed After Hours has been a reliable presence on the Billboard charts – a sort of soundtrack to the pandemic. His sublime fourth LP After Hours just won the trophy for top soul/R&B album at the American Music Awards. In a year in which little is certain, the acclaim of Abel Makkonen Tesfaye has been all but universal, his pop rulership near indisputable. Einstein could not be reached for comment. The Grammy nominations were announced on Tuesday, and there is no logic to the Los Angeles-based institution’s bizarre snubbing of Canadian pop superstar the Weeknd. Now we know the reason for the change: The anti-science crowd got to them. The Recording Academy used to be known as the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.