The Grammys supposedly exist to honor the best music from the previous year, but no one would be surprised to find out that politics were involved. A blatant, and frustrating, discussion of musical politics went on behind the scenes of this year's Best Rap Album award, and with other rap awards involving hip-hop duo Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. According to reports, voters on the rap committee attempted to exclude the group from the hip-hop categories based on its widespread popularity.
The arguments of the committee members-who remain unidentified-is that Macklemore's hits, including "Thrift Shop" and "Can't Hold Us," have gained such a mainstream appreciation that it no longer qualifies as true rap music. The fact that Macklemore delivers all the lyrics in the form of a rap is apparently irrelevant.
"There's no question it's a hip-hop album; they're hip-hop songs," said the duo's manager, Zach Quillen. "When you start to look at other things is when people's judgment got cloudy. It's what they look like, the demographic, the fan base, it's the popularity, it's the radio."
Poor sales isn't a problem affecting Macklemore's competition for Best Rap Album either. Drake, Jay-Z, Kanye West and Kendrick Lamar have each gone platinum with their respective previous releases. The elephant in the room is whether the duo's whiteness is a driving factor in being discounted as hip-hop. The group takes a less-than underhanded shot at hip-hop materialism during its hit "Thrift Shop," and tackle the issue of homosexuality, a still-loaded topic in the genre, in its single "One Love."
We might concur with country fans that Taylor Swift has officially gone pop, but we're not convinced with Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.
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