Drake defends The Weeknd's Grammys snub, suggests replacing awards with "something new"

On Tuesday (24 November) the full list of 2021 Grammy nominations were unveiled. The likes of Beyoncé, Dua Lipa, Roddy Ricch and Taylor Swift gained the most nominations, but The Weeknd's After Hours album and singles were completely left out, leading him to tweet on Tuesday, "The Grammys remain corrupt. You owe me, my fans and the industry transparency..."

Multiple publications spoke to Grammys chief Harvey Mason Jr. about The Weeknd's snub. When asked about The Weeknd's tweet, Mason Jr. replied, "It saddened me. I try to empathise with where that came from, but it was difficult to hear. I can understand he’s disappointed [at being shut out]. Everybody at the academy understands that he’s disappointed. I was personally surprised that he was not nominated."

Drake shared his thoughts about the Grammys via his Instagram yesterday (25 November), writing, "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 artists that exist now and the ones that come after."

The Certified Lover Boy rapper continued, "It's like a relative you keep expecting to fix up but they just can't change their ways. The other day I said The Weeknd was a lock for either album or song of the year along with countless other reasonable assumptions and it just never goes that way."

Drake then suggested that the Grammys could be replaced, "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."

Drake says the #GRAMMYs are losing their relevance in new Instagram story:

“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.” pic.twitter.com/MKhS3IjwIj

— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) November 26, 2020