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Dog…… I can’t believe they gave Chozun a fuckin Grammy over K Dot, you serious? Even Opie himself knew. Worst snub since Pulp Fiction lost to Forrest Gump.
-Ryback, Hoboken
Thank you for that well thought out, articulate question……Ryback. I’d be surprised if anyone was genuinely surprised by Macklemore’s domination of this year’s Awards. (Also, are these awards something that men born before 1990 still watch? They are so completely and totally irrelevant to me, I imagine the only people in my demo still interested are critics who need to write recaps the next morning for the content) While the lazy narrative involves white privilege, co-opting black music, again, and just another case of the man trying to hold us down, to me it was a much more obvious discrepancy that sealed Macklemore’s vote before it was counted.
Good Kid MAAD City is a dense, narrative rap album about urban blight and the spiral of self perpetuating violence in Compton. The singles that I can’t escape off The Heist are saccharine proto Will.I.Am-lite schlock that got lost on Hot 97 en route to its obvious intended venue, playing three times an hour on Z100. It’s the same formula that got Forrest Gump its Oscar, as well as The King’s Speech and The Artist and Philomena over Inside Llewyn Davis, the people who get to vote on these awards have a long and storied track record of picking the most accessible dog at the track. It’s that simple.
Art by ltenney1225
Or is it? The concept for the response to this email was for me to scroll through the history of the Grammy’s Rap Awards, showing that since its inception, the Grammy’s have leaned on fuck buddies over long, fulfilling relationships when it came to their forays into the Urban Market, but a few facts stood in the way of my thesis. First of all, the way the Grammy’s honors its rap acts is a history unto itself. The first ever Rap Grammy given to The Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff for “Best Rap Performance”, an award which has been discontinued several times. Trying to write a history of any one distinction would have to come with numerous asterisks and caveats.
So instead I looked to the most consistent, “Best Rap Album,” an award born in 96 and won by The Heist. The results were surprising. If you’re one of those people who think Can Ox was robbed by Outkast in 2002, you probably won’t agree, but the field most years since 96 has been remarkably consistent, usually finding a pretty decent compromise between popular and critical darlings and actually getting it right every once in a while, and not egregiously wrong nearly as often as you’d guess. Let’s take a look at the history of the award:
1996 Naughty By Nature- Poverty’s Paradise: The premier of the award, so not surprising that a familiar anthem machine took home the prize. While it’s awesome for a group like Naughty to receive mainstream validation, this was one of the strongest fields ever for the award, beating out Me Against the World, ODB’s debut, E 1999 Eternal, and of course, Skee Lo. It’s not surprising Goodie Mob was overlooked, as Rap was still thought of in most corners as a primarily coastal affair. The most shocking nominee may have been ODB, who got the nod over Mobb Deep’s The Infamous, as well as his Wu family, Raekwon and Gza. Most likely, this was a vote for “Shimmy Shimmy Ya.” Still it was 2Pac, who released his best, most personal album before giving away too much mic time to the Outlawz and going completely off the deep end, who deserved the statue.
1997 Fugees- The Score: 2Pac was back again with the aforementioned Outlawz heavy, bloated, All Eyez On Me, an album that opens with the theory that Nas is leading a cabal of East Coast rapper hell bent on destroying 2Pac. But it was chock full of hits, and the Grammy’s will take a hit over a cohesive album every time. This was one of the weakest fields, with Coolio, late Tribe and late LL Cool J in the mix. Call me contrarian but it seems like ATLiens, Ironman, Illadelph Halflife, Reasonable Doubt, and the much better 2Pac album of that year, The 7 Day Theory, could’ve made for an entire superior alternate field. Still, I’m going to say in the context of a major institution award, The Score is just as likely to be listened to 100 years from now as any of those albums. Especially only considering the nominated albums, the Fugees were the right choice.
1998 Puff Daddy and the Family- No Way Out: This is one of the worst snubs in the history of the award. Biggie’s last chance to win something posthumously is tragically awarded to the obnoxious producer he wrote songs for. No Way Out is more like an album length skit with a few songs to break up Puffy’s laments over Samuel Barber. It was another weak field, Missy, Wyclef and Wu-Tang Forever, but would anyone argue, looking back, that they got this one right?
1999 Jay-Z- Vol. 2…..Hard Knock Life: The year Lauryn Hill destroyed the Grammy’s with an album that apparently wasn’t rap. Jigga proves that the road to this award is paved with hits. He sampled Annie and won this award for what will almost certainly be the only time in his career. Jermaine Dupri, Ma$e and even later Tribe all were up for the award but for me, the real story is one of my all-time favorite random recognitions, Big Pun’s Capital Punishment, probably solely off “Still Not a Playa” spins, but who cares.
2000 Eminem- The Slim Shady LP: One of the easiest contests in “Best Rap Album” history, and of course it has to be for a white rapper. There’s no doubt amongst Extinction Level Event, I Am, a Missy Elliot album no one remembers and, I hate to say it, but, Things Fall Apart, Eminem’s debut was the one that felt the most important then and remains so today (though shockingly, no love for Black On Both Sides, which you’d think would be obvious award bait). Much in the same way I argued for the Fugees, I’d say this was the right call, though the sustained refusal to acknowledge Outkast was becoming increasingly egregious.
2001 Eminem- The Marshall Mathers LP: This race is right there with 96 for the toughest call. Chronic 2001, Jay-Z’s Volume 3 and even Nelly’s Country Grammar, which was kind of a great album in its own, strange, absurdly catchy way. There are some tough omissions to this list: Reflection Eternal, Slum Village, Like Water for Chocolate, The Last of a Dying Breed and Supreme Clientele, but is anyone really surprised they were omitted? At the end of the day, even though the competition was stiff, this wasn’t a hard call to make. Eminem was at the peak of his fame and this was his best album, a shockingly mature referendum on those using antiquated rhetoric to condemn him. It was a triumphant, hellfire sermon that found Marshall operating on all cylinders, raging at his antagonistic, reactionary best. Of course, he’s also white.
2002 Outkast- Stankonia: Of course, Outkast releases the worst album of their career and finally break their cold streak with a W. The field was beyond bad, Eve’s sophomore album, Ja Rule’s pact with Emperor Palpatine, Luda’s debut, and oh, The Blueprint. Not saying Stankonia was all bad, but Andre was definitely beginning his trek into smelling his own farts indulgence. Jay was robbed.
2003 Eminem- The Eminem Show: OK, educated white rap critics, commence wanking. Here we have the official document, proof of institutional racism. You want slights? There was The Fix, God’s Son……. And that’s about it. Was 2002 the worst year in the history of rap? Seriously, what a fucking garbage year for Hip Hop. The Grammy’s swung wildly away from their Southern bias with a field that contained no New Yorkers or Calfornians. Are you ready for this murderers row? Ludacris- Word of Mouf, Mystikal- Tarantula, Nelly- Nellyville and Petey Pablo- Diary of a Sinner: First Entry. I mean, Scarface obviously should’ve won, but for fuck’s sake the year was so bad the voting public probably just tried to forget it had happened and wrote in Em.
2004 Outkast- Speakerboxx/The Love Below: The year in which the worst Big Boi solo record and a record with a five minute instrumental version of “My Favorite Things” constituted as the year’s best. Another year you could describe as not great, aside from 50’s debut and Juelz Santana’s From Me To U. 50 probably should’ve gotten this for unleashing a perfect, enormous album that changed music for several years after (though probably not for the better).
2005: Kanye West- The College Dropout Kind of surprising how often you’re about to see Kanye’s name. I remember him making a big stink about the Grammy’s. Turns out it was ALBUM OF THE YEAR he was stewing over. West took this one pretty handily. The Black Album was his only competition, and for my money, his was the better album.
2006 Kanye West- Late Registration: Once again. Patterns start to emerge here with the nominating process for best album, it’s like if you’ve gotten one before, you’re a known and trusted entity (Missy, 50, Em, and Kanye were all repeat recipients. Shockingly, this was Common’s first time up as a nominee……for an album produced by Kanye West). Still, considering the field, even a lesser Kanye album was probably the right choice in a shitty year.
2007 Ludacris- Release Therapy: This was a fitting cross section of what was happening in Rap — the 50 Cent driven Power Pop Rap-model was fading and shit started getting weird. Pharell’s In My Mind, a Rap album in the loosest possible sense, went up against Lupe’s debut, T.I. at the top of his stadium rap game, and the Roots, with what I consider to be their best album. The Ludacris nod has a kind of logic to it. He was a perennial nominee and each of the other contenders had knocks against them (Despite being the perfect Rap response to the Bush era, Game Theory had no hits, T.I. had monster hits but little soul). You can argue for Donuts, (a very difficult sell as a “Rap Album”) but the point is this was an eclectic field and a familiar face took it. Despite liking Game Theory the best, this is one of the most interesting fields this category ever put together.
2008- Kanye West- Graduation: Another pretty sizeable dearth of quality albums, Kanye’s anthemic best from his “fun” period vs. Jay-Z’s dogshit comeback album, two really bad follow up albums from T.I. and Common, and the only real competition from Hip Hop Is Dead.
2009- Lil Wayne- The Carter 3: My pick for the “best” rap album of the first decade of the 20th Century won a Grammy! In my mind, this is probably the best award they ever handed out in this category, there were a ton of directions this one could’ve gone in. Nas, Jay, T.I., and Lupe’s debut were all lurking in the wings, an easy place to hide. Instead, a pint sized, digressive, face tatted syrup addict took the trophy home. Yes, there were some monster hits on this, and sure, there was that one “message” song about Katrina, but a ballsy and absolutely correct decision.
2010- Eminem- Replase: Apparently, the Odd Future crew hijacked the voting process this year, as a phenomenally bad Em, at the inception of his adrenalized robot downward spiral, beat out a packed field. Jay’s best album since returning, B.O.B.’s mainstream slayer, Drake’s quiet, culturally important, major label debut, and the always-a-bridesmaid Roots go down to a bottoming out, past expiration has been. Drake should’ve taken this one, or, what the hell, can the Roots live?
2011- Kanye West- My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy: This should surprise no one. With the exception of most of the critics here at Passion of the Weiss, every single person on Earth acknowledged this record as the classic it was and still is. This one was a no brainer, with the exception of the 24 (!) other albums we ranked ahead of it that year.
2012- Drake- Take Care: Another one that every except the majority of the critics I write with will be in agreement with. It seems as the years went on, the choice, at least in winner, became more in step with the cultural mainstream consensus on what constitutes as great rap. Is this a sign of a greater awareness, the consensus moving towards the middle, or a genre and the people who love it showing their age? It will probably take decades to untangle that question, and by then your kids will listen to nothing but EDM and you’ll be clutching your ipod knocking Section 80 like your grandfather listening to Benny Goodman on a phonograph. In addition to Drake’s perfectly strange, sprawling sophomore effort deserving it, there wasn’t much competition last year. A totally left field nom for 2 Chainz, a Lupe Fiasco album I’ve never heard, the hit and miss Life Is Good, God Forgives, I Don’t, and you guessed it, a Roots album. I think the academy wanted to include the Roots so bad they expanded the field to six nominees, because it’s the only time they ever did that, so of course the intention was to continue their sustained torture of Captain Kirk.
2013- Macklemore- The Heist: So, in conclusion, after going through every year on this list, my guess will be we’ll see Macklemore’s name in this category again, real soon. With the exception of Naughty By Nature in 96, winners and nominees almost always return, so expect plenty more shitty stadium pop rap songs where “Can’t Hold Us” came from. 2013 was a pretty great year for rap. Obviously there was Kendrick’s classic, but Drake had a very strange and possibly portentous heavily R&B skewed release that sounded like nothing I’ve ever heard, and Kanye, who did it yet again with a rap album that barely sounds like music the first time you hear it, yet was a consensus favorite around the internet. Even with all that said, with a record of occasionally picking the right album and an emerging trend of actually nominating good records, am I surprised this vanilla act from the Northwest beat a tortured, dense, labrynth of an album from an emerging Compton based MC? What do you think?
Hey thanks for the Future mix! Another rapper I kinda missed the boat on was Problem. He has some cuts I’ve heard & he fux with DJ Mustard who kills it normally. Can I get a mix for him, club & twerkin/yikin jams? You guys are the best!
– Chris T
Who?
