Your Favorite White Boy

Consider this my obligatory post on last night’s festivities.  Rap purists across the globe were probably rolling their collective eyes when they saw that Weezy had won 4 Grammies last night.  Especially when it comes to singles like “Lollipop”, heads must figure that pop is what’s the business when it comes to music industry awards.  But the problem goes deeper than that. Things at the Grammys are structured so that the quality of rap on offer is virtually irrelevant: only numbers matter.

Ever wondered how they vote on who gets a Grammy?  I have.  Is it a bunch of old white folk in a board room?  I figured it was some label  suits who get together once a year to “bestow an honor” on some musicians.  But its actually  more broadbased than that, but its definitely limited.

Any voting member of the National Acadamy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) can vote on who gets a Grammy.  There are about 10,000 voting NARAS members.    A voting member is defined as:

“[p]rofessionals with creative or technical credits on six commercially released tracks (or their equivalent). These may include vocalists, conductors, songwriters, composers, engineers, producers, instrumentalists, arrangers, art directors, album notes writers, narrators, and music video artists and technicians.”

So these are indeed industry folks. But not everyone will vote on the rap categories. Each voting member can only vote on 9 of the 31 categories. So if you’re bag is classical music, you’re less likely to waste your votes on the rap category. So, the voting members most likely to vote on rap nominees are members more familiar with hip-hop – at least in the early stages.

Hundreds of songs for consideration; only the 4 or 5 with the most votes go forward for the final vote and ultimately the award itself. This is where it becomes a numbers game. There are only so many R&B/hip-hop heads in NARAS. Ultimately, the biggest record with the biggest artist will have the best chance of voting members having actually heard the record. When Wayne sold 2.5 million, he virtually guaranteed that he would get the Grammy this year. The more mainstream exposure he got, the more of a lock it was.

Add this to the fact that its up to the record labels to decided which songs are up for consideration and that narrows the field dramatically. If you knew that the majority of likely voting members only having a passing familiarity with hip-hop, why would you put forward an artist only heads know or love? Sorry, Jay Electronica.  Sorry, Little Brother.

Now, things have come a long way – which shows how mainstream hip-hop has become.  10 years ago, only the poppiest of rap joints would be nominated.  Sure, Ras Kass hasn’t gotten his Grammy yet and it will be a long, long time until Dilla gets a lifetime achievement nod, but its a long road from “Parents Just Don’t Understand” to “Swagger Like Us”.

But while non-rap affiliated NARAS members can vote on rap categories, winning a Grammy will always be about how much mainstream exposure that record got. It may seem intuitive, but now you know why it is so.  You’re welcome.

Tags: Grammys, Lil Wayne