The Recording Academy, the organization behind the Grammy Awards, announced award category and rule changes today. In this thread, I’ll address the renaming of the Best Rap/Sung category to “Best *Melodic Rap Performance” and why it’s problematic.
The Western Classical tradition — which is held up as the penultimate of Western music — prioritizes Harmony, then Melody… Rhythm is last. That rhythm comes last is no accident, as we will see later in this thread. From my book The BeatTips Manual:
What are the Recording Academy/GRAMMYS really doing? They are instituting a form of pre-emptive coverage — let’s call it the Macklemore rule — against future Rap nominations and wins that do not center the music *style or the people who dominate rap music — Black people/POC. So this rule change now *insists on *melody AND “elements from non-rap genres…” So a *rap award category that doesn’t prioritize or feature rap elements
The Recording Academy/ GRAMMYS effectively wants to close the door on the notion that the people dominating rap music — Black people — should not automatically have a seat at the table…that they built and maintain. To make room for who?
The Recording Academy/GRAMMYS is using trick knowledge with the word “inclusivity.” Think about when someone says, “reverse racism” or that blacks are “racist against whites.” *Inclusivity is a way to INCLUDE more white people and justify their nominations/wins in rap.
Side note: hip hop/rap has always been *inclusive. That’s one of the reasons it’s the most popular, most accessible genre in the world! Again, this isn’t about *inclusivity. This is about making more room for white people, and the privileging of *melody/harmony over rhythm.
Black/African music privileges *rhythm. Full stop. Doesn’t matter if harmony and melody are incorporated in popular Black music. The defining primary music element of Black/African music is *rhythm. More broadly speaking, this represents the African worldview vs. the European worldview of time: repetition vs. linear progression. The European Worldview has always defined itself *against the African worldview. (Historically, Europe has an inferiority complex with Africa…)
That the Recording Academy/GRAMMYS is slipping this rule change in right now demonstrates how white supremacy uses trick knowledge to further attempt to assert its superiority: They’re doing this under the guise of *inclusivity.
In effect, the Recording Academy/GRAMMYS is saying, “we will now respect the new rap — which prioritizes melody over rhythm, makes room for more white people, and prioritizes elements outside of…rap music. So we have to be *inclusive.” The fuck! End
