ENTERTAINMENT NEWS: Grammys Give Hip Hop A Bad Rap?

courtesy of buzzsugar.com

Hip Hop in itself is a competitive sport consisting of lyrical battles, and career ending beef; 'dissing' is part of the culture and is common, some would argue necessary. But when the whole industry gets dissed, that raises flags of many of Hip Hop's prominent leaders who are ambassadors for the music, its culture and lifestyle. In 1989, the rap movement boycotted the Grammys. Angered by the fact that the rap awards would not be part of the live televised show, 3 "Best Rap Performance" nominees: LL Cool J, Fresh Prince, Dj Jazzy Jeff pulled out of the show. Ten years later in 1999 Jay Z went on record and said " I am boycotting the Grammys because too many rap artist continue to be overlooked". Radio/ blog and tv personality Miss Info also twitted "CBS DOES NOT CARE ABOUT RAP PEOPLE!" The only hip hop award show that was broadcasted was "Best Rap/ Song collaboration, won by Kanye, Rihanna, and Jay Z. The only hip hop performance was Lil Wayne, Drake and Eminem performing "Drop the World"and "Forever". Hip Hop artist and Queens native Qtip says "Boycott Grammys" on Twitter.

Alot of viewers also felt that the Jackson family was not shown much appreciation niether. Even though there was a Michael Jackson tribute and his kids came on stage to accept the award, Randy jackson twitted "So proud(,) my brother being honored 2nite w/the Lifetime Achievement Award. My family would love to be there but the truth is, we weren't invited". It was an eventful evening at the 52nd annual Grammy show with Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga,Buckwheat Zydeco, Kings of Leon, and Jason Mraz (some of you are probably scratching your heads right now) going home as winners notably. Congratulations to all winners! Maybe next year will be different, maybe the board can also reach deeper into underground Hip Hop and perhaps make a new category...okay Jesus would be back before that happens. "And the Grammy nominees for best Underground Hip Hop artist are..." that whole sentence is an oxymoron, we'll just work on the hip hop music in the mainstream for now. This years tag line for the 52nd Grammy Award show is "We're All Fans"....maybe they should put in parantheses "(...just not of Hip Hop)".