This year’s Grammy Awards was definitely one for the books. After almost five years of boycotting the annual award ceremony, The Weeknd made a shocking surprise appearance at the show on Sunday night.
His smash hit album “After Hours” had been dominating numerous streaming records throughout the world after its release in early 2020. His well-known single “Blinding Lights” was titled Billboard’s biggest Hot 100 song of all time and the most streamed song in Spotify history, having over four billion streams.
Even after the release and public success for the Canadian singer’s album, he was said to have been ‘totally snubbed’ when the nominations for the 63rd Grammy Award were announced and received zero nominations that year, causing the feud between the Weeknd and the Grammys to spark.
Some hours after the nomination announcement, the singer called out the Recording Academy in a tweet saying, “The Grammys remain corrupt. You owe me, my fans and the industry transparency…”.
“To be clear, voting in all categories ended well before The Weeknd’s performance at the Super Bowl was announced, so in no way could it have affected the nomination process,” CEO of the Recording Academy Harvey Mason Jr. says after the artist called out the Academy.
Ever since, the Recording Academy and the Weeknd never made full peace and closure with the issue, until Sunday’s performance.
At the 67th Award ceremony, Mason Jr. says, “You know what, criticism is okay. I heard him. I felt his conviction. What we all want is an organization dedicated to the well-being of all music makers, and one that reflects the entire music community for now and for future generations. So over the past few years, we’ve listened, we’ve acted, and we’ve changed.”
After Mason Jr.’s speech, the singer then made a surprise appearance and performed two songs from his newest album “Hurry Up Tomorrow”: “Cry for Me” and “Timeless”. His performance also included a surprise appearance by Playboi Carti, who is featured on one of his newest records.
Grammy watcher Abby Garcia says, “The Weeknd was such a good surprise to add at the Grammys in my opinion since he’s been one of my favorite artists for a long time. I’m also glad he was able to get an apology from the Academy after they did him and other artists dirty the past couple of years. Hopefully things change in the future.”
The Weeknd’s boycott towards the Recording Academy left a significant mark as it was meant to call out the unfairness and corruption within the music industry. The boycott was not because of his own lack of nominations, but because of the untruthfulness the Academy had towards their artists, and he hoped to change that.
