On Sunday night, the Top Dawg of the industry, Sir Kendrick Lamar, lit the Grammys stage on fire with the best performance of the show. Then, he casually took home a handful of shiny Grammys for Best Rap Performance, Best Rap/Sung Performance, Best Rap Song, and Best Rap Album—he even grabbed one for Best Music Video. So what do all of these things have in common? Rap. No disrespect, but anybody who's not a Jay Z stan could have seen those awards coming from a mile away.
The real bar for testing the Grammys' perpetually flawed, minimally improving system was whether they would award Album of the Year to a rapper. Not just any rapper, but a man who's managed to do the almost impossible: Kendrick inserted messages of deep introspection and self-evaluation into his rhymes, and expertly layered them on top of incredibly hard-hitting beats that sound so damn good you don't even realize you're being scolded, preached to, and inevitably inspired.
Kendrick has been seen as the best in the hip-hop world since the second he dropped his major label debut, good kid, M.A.A.D. city, six years ago. So the Grammys have had plenty of time to catch the fuck up and recognize him for the talent that he possesses, a talent that dominates across all genres. But alas, they have not caught the fuck up. They're still stuck giving the major awards, including Album of the Year, to safe bets like Bruno Mars (who's talented, but come on). 2018 seemed like the perfect year for the Recording Academy to get it right, and they just... sigh.
Anywho, enough of me rambling. Here are reactions from just a few of K-Dot's understandably outraged fans:
The To Pimp a Butterfly snub provoked a rage in me that has never truly died and to see Kendrick done dirty again is soul destroying
I’m sure Bruno Mars is a nice man and he’s an amazing performer.
But Kendrick Lamar is the decade’s transcendent musical Artist.
The #Grammy2018 never fail to disappoint and pick the safer choice.
Fuck you #Grammys. You suck me in every year and I always leave pissed off.
Kendrick Lamar really is the Leonardo DiCaprio of the music industry. #GRAMMYs
Bruno Mars really won Album of the Year over Kendrick Lamar. #GRAMMYs pic.twitter.com/1FYTCvjIlN
Kendrick Lamar should have won best album🤦🏽♂️
Kendrick should have won. I feel robbed.
kendrick was robbed
they snub kendrick EVERY SINGLE TIME
Kendrick put out three of the greatest albums of our lifetime, and three times now he has lost the Grammy for Best Album. First to Daft Punk, then to Taylor Swift, and now to Bruno Mars.
I would say maybe it'll go down next year, but what's the point? Some things never change.
