This years’ Grammys was spectacular in terms of performances. If I were to speak of awards, however,  I would say the past couple of years have been much less so.

Nowadays, you may find your favorite artists straying away from what people may call the music industry’s biggest night. It may not come as a surprise, but the Grammys has a history that lacks representation of POC. 

To put it into perspective, in its 61 shows, only 10 black artists have won the most renowned award, Record and Album of the Year. 

The validity of the Grammys over the years have become less of a question and more of a demand, as artists like Kanye West, Frank Ocean and Russell Simons either refuse to attend the Grammys, or even acknowledge it. And most recently, The Weeknd, a Canadian song producer and singer voiced his lack of recognition. 

This is especially apparent with his single, “Blinding Lights,” which hit #1 on the Billboard top 100. The Weeknd refused to submit any more of his music for nomination at the Grammys, and many agreed with his decision. It seems the Weeknd has followed in Frank Ocean’s footsteps, as Ocean announced he would not be putting his albums up for nomination a year prior. 

“Things I don’t like is that they really only give award to pop singers, rappers, a lot of people work hard on their albums and songs and a lot of hit me feel discouraged and a lot of people take the Grammys too seriously,” Jesse Marin, a musician and senior at Sage Creek, said. 

African Americans artists tend to win in genres such as hip-hop, r&b, rap, which seem to show a bias from an objective standpoint. In this last decade, the only non-white artist to win a Grammy Award for album of the year was Herbie Hancock in 2008.

To further elaborate, Drake’s “Hotline Bling” won the Grammy award for the best rap song, which is not a rap song, as stated in his acceptance speech. This baffled many, but since it was the Grammys it was simply overlooked. Falsely showcasing a track undermines its well-deserved glory.

Justin Bieber’s album, Changes, was also in the wrong category, filing under pop rather than R&B, and has joined many artists in boycotting the Grammys. The Grammys typically place POC artist’s singles and albums in wrong albums probably not for mistake, but rather a poorly executed separation of what is actually popular from what they want to be popular. 

On the topic of well-deserved glory in this year’s Grammys, BTS, a Korean boy group, performed their hit single, “Dynamite”, by the end of the show. The Kpop group was nominated for Best Pop Group or Duo. Other than this, during the actual awards, they were given no more limelight than a performance that blew the audience away. From my eyes, this seems like a way to keep BTS fans subsiding the obnoxious fact that they got no awards. 

For BTS, the Grammys was a dream to win as the world’s biggest international group. They expressed that they hope to pay no mind to losing the Grammys and will focus on bringing their fans their best new music as the world’s most famous group.

The absence of BTS receiving what they deserve as the most popular group on the planet, and with many POC artists receiving awards in wrong categories such as rap and r&b leaves me to believe that there is a faulty system at the Grammys, and the validity of the biggest night in music is a systematic failure.

The problem of inviting nominees and not appropriately showing recognition is something the Grammys has been under fire for, for many years in a row now, and I hope to see the end of it in the next coming of years.

Sooner or later, it won’t be artists losing the Grammys, but it will be the Grammys losing the artists.