"Blinding Lights" singer The Weeknd announces he is boycotting the Grammy Awards going forward.

<a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/men/the-weeknd-facts-merch-lyrics-after-hours" target="_blank">The Weeknd</a> is officially boycotting the Grammy Awards, accoridng to a recent statement to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/11/arts/music/grammys-the-weeknd-beyonce.html?smtyp=cur&amp;smid=tw-nytimes" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>.

Back in November&nbsp;2020, The Weeknd fans were going wild over the Grammys shutting the pop artist out of 2021&rsquo;s nominations. This snub was in spite of the XO star&#39;s highly succesful&nbsp;After Hours&nbsp;studio album, which <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/music/the-weeknd-spotify-wrapped-2020" target="_blank">took Spotify&#39;s top 2020&nbsp;spot the&nbsp;with the song&nbsp;</a><a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/music/the-weeknd-spotify-wrapped-2020" target="_blank">Blinding Lights</a>.&nbsp;At the time the artist had little to say about the ordeal, appearing to be mostly unbothered by the lack of Recording Academy recognition. He stated in a <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/9516909/the-weeknd-xo-records-billboard-cover-story-interview-2021/" target="_blank">Billboard profile</a> at the end of January: &ldquo;I personally don&rsquo;t care anymore. I have three Grammys, which mean nothing to me now, obviously. It&rsquo;s not like, &lsquo;Oh, I want the Grammy!&rsquo; It&rsquo;s just that this happened, and I&rsquo;m down to get in front of the fire, as long as it never happens again. I suck at giving speeches anyways. Forget awards shows.&rdquo;

Fast forward to today, <a href="https://www.lofficiel.co.uk/girls/ariana-grande-superbowl-the-weeknd-perfomance-prize-when-cost" target="_blank">the singer-songwriter</a>&nbsp;announces to&nbsp;The New York Times that he will no longer be participating in the awards show moving forward. This decision comes amidst controversy regarding the Grammy organization&#39;s secretive voting system and biases against both Black and female artists. The Weeknd told&nbsp;the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/11/arts/music/grammys-the-weeknd-beyonce.html?smtyp=cur&amp;smid=tw-nytimes" target="_blank">Times</a> &ldquo;Because of the secret committees, I will no longer allow my label to submit my music to the Grammys.&rdquo;

In response, the Recording Academy&#39;s interim chief executive Harvey Mason Jr. stated that &ldquo;we&rsquo;re all disappointed when anyone is upset. But I will say that we are constantly evolving.&rdquo; According to the interim chief, the Recording Academy is seeking internal improvements.&nbsp;He went on to say that &ldquo;this year, as in past years, we are going to take a hard look at how to improve our awards process, including the nomination review committees.&rdquo;&nbsp;Mason may indeed have good intentions, but The Weeknd is far from the only successful musician to raise concerns over the Grammys&#39;&nbsp;selective practices. <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/music/meek-mill-launched-his-own-music-label-with-jay-z" target="_blank">Jay-Z</a>, <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/pop-culture/kim-kardashian-officially-files-for-divorce-from-kanye-west" target="_blank">Kanye West</a>, Zayn Malik, and Frank Ocean have all&nbsp;<a href="http://Mason may indeed have good intentions, but the Weeknd is far from the only successful musician to raise concerns over the Grammy’s selective practices. Jay-z, Kanye West, and Frank Ocean have all also come out in protest of the Recording Academy’s lack of diverse representation on their internal committees.">come out in protest </a>of the Recording Academy&rsquo;s lack of diverse representation on its internal committees.

The issue is also (predictably) nothing new. Back in 2016 when <a href="https://www.lofficiel.co.uk/pop-culture/Spotify-Instagram-wrapped-2020-taylor-swift-the-weeknd-and-bad-bunny" target="_blank">Taylor Swift</a> took home the Grammy for Album of The Year over now Pulitzer Prize-winning Kendrick Lamar, <a href="http://musiqology.com/blog/2016/02/22/kendrick-lamar-and-the-structural-limits-of-black-excellence/" target="_blank">music scholar John Vilanova</a> wrote &ldquo;Despite the fact that hip hop is arguably the most popular music of our time, when it comes time for the &#39;real awards,&#39;&nbsp;non-white artists are almost never recognized. In the last 10 years, there have been 17 nonwhite <a href="https://www.lofficielarabia.com/music/how-music-video-director-grant-singer-is-redefining-the-art-form" target="_blank">artists</a> nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year.&rdquo;&nbsp;

Seven years later, Vilanova&rsquo;s qualms have not been addressed, as reflected by a statement uncomfortably similar to his 2016 one made by The Weeknd to <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/9516909/the-weeknd-xo-records-billboard-cover-story-interview-2021/" target="_blank">Billboard</a>: &ldquo;In the last 61 years of the Grammys, only 10 Black artists have won album of the year. I don&rsquo;t want to make this about me. That&rsquo;s just a fact.&rdquo; How the Grammy organization plans to resolve these issues remains unclear.

The Grammys Snubbed the Weeknd, Now He is Snubbing Them Back

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