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On Tuesday, November 24, the 53rd annual Grammy Awards nominations were announced, and not without controversy.

Three artists in particular – Nicki Minaj, The Weeknd, and Justin Bieber – took to social media to voice their discontent.

The Weeknd has done pretty well for himself this year, most recently taking home the award for Favourite Male Artist, Favourite Soul/R&B Album (After Hours), and Favourite Soul/R&B Song (‘Heartless’) at the American Music Awards, so he and others were shocked when he didn’t receive a single nomination.

He called the Grammys out on Twitter:

The Grammys remain corrupt. You owe me, my fans and the industry transparency…

— The Weeknd (@theweeknd) November 25, 2020

Harvey Mason Jr., the Recording Academy’s chair and interim president/CEO, supplied Billboard with the following statement after the tweet, and after it was suggested that it was his upcoming Super Bowl performance that affected the nominations:

“We understand that The Weeknd is disappointed at not being nominated. I was surprised and can empathize with what he’s feeling. His music this year was excellent…We were thrilled when we found out he would be performing at the upcoming Super Bowl and we would have loved to have him also perform on the Grammy stage the weekend before …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.”

The Weeknd has received 10 Grammy nominations over the years, eight of which were for his own recordings. The other two were for featured roles on recordings by Wiz Khalifa and Beyoncé.

Read more from the Academy here.

Moving on to Justin Bieber, who received four nominations including Best Pop Solo Performance (‘Yummy’), Best Pop Duo/Group Performance (‘Intentions’, featuring Quavo), Best Pop Vocal Album, and Best Country Duo/Group Performance (for his feature on Dan + Shay’s ‘10,000 Hours’).

He’s grumpy because they supposedly put him in the wrong category – pop instead of R&B:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Justin Bieber (@justinbieber)

Cry me a river.

Which brings us to Nicki Minaj who, despite 10 nominations in the past, has yet to take home a Grammy. She recalled her 2012 loss to Bon Iver:

Never forget the Grammys didn’t give me my best new artist award when I had 7 songs simultaneously charting on billboard & bigger first week than any female rapper in the last decade- went on to inspire a generation. They gave it to the white man Bon Iver. #PinkFriday

— Mrs. Petty (@NICKIMINAJ) November 24, 2020

She wasn’t nominated this year.

Meanwhile, Beyoncé became the most nominated female artist in the history of the Grammy Awards after earning nine nominations including Record of the Year for Black Parade, and ‘Savage’, her collaboration with Megan Thee Stallion.

I reckon the Grammy drama is just beginning.

[source:billboard]