Drake Mysteriously Withdraws His Two Grammy Nominations

Drake pulls his two 2022 Grammy nominations just weeks after they were announced, staying true to his 2019 Grammy Speech.

Source: Lester Cohen / Getty

Since the beginning of time, Hip-Hop and the Grammys have had a dysfunctional relationship mainly because rappers feel the Grammys do not understand Hip-Hop and always get the winners wrong.

Look no further than Macklemore’s 2014 win over Drake, Kanye West, Jay-Z, and Kendrick Lamar. Macklemore would tell you himself he didn’t deserve to win and doesn’t understand how it even went down that way, which is exactly the problem.

Rappers have boycotted the Grammys since the ’80s for unfair treatment. In 1989, Will Smith and Jazzy Jeff boycotted the ceremony when they learned their category wouldn’t be televised. Jay-Z wasn’t in attendance when he won his first Grammy due to Boycotting in 1999 and now, he has more nominations than any artist. As of late, Drake, Kanye, The Weeknd, and more have been vocal about the disrespect from the Grammys. Drake notoriously gave a spicy speech in 2019 after winning a Grammy where he basically said the award “doesn’t matter” and we should stop placing so much validation in them.

In 2021, it seems Drake is still saying “screw the Grammys” and has retracted his two 2022 Grammy nominations. Drake was nominated for Best Rap Album for Certified Lover Boy and for Best Rap Performance, for “Way 2 Sexy” featuring Future and Young Thug. Last year, Drake penned another shady Grammy post in support of the Weeknd’s boycott, so withdrawing his nominations could be him holding the picket line.

“I think we should stop allowing ourselves to be shocked every year by the disconnect between impactful music and these awards and just accept that what once was the highest form of recognition may no longer matter to the artist that exist now and the ones that come after,” he wrote in his Instagram Story. “It’s like a relative you keep expecting to fix up but they just won’t change their ways. The other day I said @theweeknd was a lock for either album or song of the year along with countless other reasonable assumptions and it just never goes that way. This is a great time for somebody to start something new that we can build up over time and pass on to the generations to come.”

If there was any time to make some new awards, the time is now. Just like we have the Latin Grammy awards, it’s time for something special for R&B and Hip-Hop. The Grammys can’t seem to please everyone, even when they actually try, so at this point, it’s a lost cause to think everyone will be happy.

For now, you can watch Drake’s slanderous 2019 speech get cut short below.