The Official Hip Hop Grammys 2018 Thread

[Ziggiy]

K.Dot opening with U2 AND The Gawd Dave Chappelle


This is some 2018 Grammys news you're going to love: Kendrick Lamar is opening the show!

The rapper, who is nominated this year in seven categories, will be this year's opening act, E! News can exclusively confirm. Lamar won't be entertaining the crowd solo, either. He's slated to take the stage at Madison Square Garden with U2 and E! News has learned Dave Chappelle will also be a part of the opening act.


@Illeye buckmatic @IllmaticDelta @BarNone @Piff Perkins @JordanWearinThe45 thoughts?

 

[Waterproof]

K.Dot opening with U2 AND The Gawd Dave Chappelle


This is some 2018 Grammys news you're going to love: Kendrick Lamar is opening the show!

The rapper, who is nominated this year in seven categories, will be this year's opening act, E! News can exclusively confirm. Lamar won't be entertaining the crowd solo, either. He's slated to take the stage at Madison Square Garden with U2 and E! News has learned Dave Chappelle will also be a part of the opening act.


@Illeye buckmatic @IllmaticDelta @BarNone @Piff Perkins @JordanWearinThe45 thoughts?

Kendrick and Dave Chappelle, doing it for the culture

 

[JordanWearinThe45]

K.Dot opening with U2 AND The Gawd Dave Chappelle


This is some 2018 Grammys news you're going to love: Kendrick Lamar is opening the show!

The rapper, who is nominated this year in seven categories, will be this year's opening act, E! News can exclusively confirm. Lamar won't be entertaining the crowd solo, either. He's slated to take the stage at Madison Square Garden with U2 and E! News has learned Dave Chappelle will also be a part of the opening act.


@Illeye buckmatic @IllmaticDelta @BarNone @Piff Perkins @JordanWearinThe45 thoughts?

DOPE!!!

 

[Illeye buckmatic]

K.Dot opening with U2 AND The Gawd Dave Chappelle


This is some 2018 Grammys news you're going to love: Kendrick Lamar is opening the show!

The rapper, who is nominated this year in seven categories, will be this year's opening act, E! News can exclusively confirm. Lamar won't be entertaining the crowd solo, either. He's slated to take the stage at Madison Square Garden with U2 and E! News has learned Dave Chappelle will also be a part of the opening act.


@Illeye buckmatic @IllmaticDelta @BarNone @Piff Perkins @JordanWearinThe45 thoughts?

Was gonna skip it but can't turn my back on kendrick and Dave

 

[No1]

K.Dot opening with U2 AND The Gawd Dave Chappelle


This is some 2018 Grammys news you're going to love: Kendrick Lamar is opening the show!

The rapper, who is nominated this year in seven categories, will be this year's opening act, E! News can exclusively confirm. Lamar won't be entertaining the crowd solo, either. He's slated to take the stage at Madison Square Garden with U2 and E! News has learned Dave Chappelle will also be a part of the opening act.


@Illeye buckmatic @IllmaticDelta @BarNone @Piff Perkins @JordanWearinThe45 thoughts?

Like I said, he will win the rap awards. Giving Jay Z the Icon award is the consolation.

 

[Ziggiy]

Like I said, he will win the rap awards. Giving Jay Z the Icon award is the consolation.

Forbes noted (interestingly) that the previous two AOTY winners (Swift and Adele) have also opened the ceremony

 

[Ziggiy]

Forbes also has Kendrick tapped for AOTY

Who Should Win: DAMN.

Lamar has now released three full-length albums on a major label, and all three have been nominated for the highest award in the music industry, though he’s never won before. There have been calls for him to collect this trophy since the beginning, but he’s been shut out both times. 2018 seems like it will be Kendrick’s year to finally win Album of the Year, and when he does, it will be overdue and well-deserved. Grammy voters know that while he does have seven trophies to his name, Lamar still doesn’t have the number of prizes he should, and a win this time around will be a reflection not only on the work he created for DAMN., but for the two albums that were denied in years past. DAMN. is an easy choice for most, as it’s meaningful, powerful, forward-thinking, and it was highly successful.


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fo...ile-alessia-cara-may-win-best-new-artist/amp/

 

[Piff Perkins]

K.Dot opening with U2 AND The Gawd Dave Chappelle


This is some 2018 Grammys news you're going to love: Kendrick Lamar is opening the show!

The rapper, who is nominated this year in seven categories, will be this year's opening act, E! News can exclusively confirm. Lamar won't be entertaining the crowd solo, either. He's slated to take the stage at Madison Square Garden with U2 and E! News has learned Dave Chappelle will also be a part of the opening act.


@Illeye buckmatic @IllmaticDelta @BarNone @Piff Perkins @JordanWearinThe45 thoughts?

Going all out I see (again). We shall see.

 

[mykey]

I see everybody's excited White daddy threw you'all a bone with this year's Grammy Awards. You can bet it will be #GrammiessoWhite for the next twenty years. Why the fcuk should any Black person care about the damn Grammies?

 

[No1]

Forbes noted (interestingly) that the previiis two AOTY winners (Swift and Adele) have also opened the ceremony

Honestly, I think Jay Z would be more deserving of being the first hip hop solo artist to win and it represents Nas and all those dudes from that era that never got their shine.

 

[Ziggiy]

Honestly, I think Jay Z would be more deserving of being the first hip hop solo artist to win and it represents Has and all those dudes from that era that never got their shine.

Normally I’d agree. And if this were ANY other year he’d probably get it. But Kendrick’s album was the most critically acclaimed AND the best selling album of the YEAR. And as you yourself have told me in years past the Grammys usually ALWAYS go with the big sellers.

Kendrick also has momentum on his side, having been nominated twice before and being robbed for TPAB

The Grammys also have to prove that they are still in “touch” with the youth, having artists like Frank Ocean and Drake call you out and boycott the ceremony is different than it was when DJ Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince led a boycott. Hip Hop is an undeniable force in music. Hip Hop IS Pop Music and with the advent of social media the voices and gatekeepers of the culture all champion Kendrick.

All of this could be for nought however. We could be debating Hov Vs. K.Dot all day and come Sunday muthafukking Bruno Mars, or worse, Lorde (Y U C K) wins AOTY

 

[No1]

Normally I’d agree. And if this were ANY other year he’d probably get it. But Kendrick’s album was the most critically acclaimed AND the best selling album of the YEAR. And as you yourself have told me in years past the Grammys usually ALWAYS go with the big sellers.

Kendrick also has momentum on his side, having been nominated twice before and being robbed for TPAB

The Grammys also have to prove that they are still in “touch” with the youth, having artists like Frank Ocean and Drake call you out and boycott the ceremony is different than it was when DJ Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince led a boycott. Hip Hop is an undeniable force in music. Hip Hop IS Pop Music and with the advent of social media the voices and gatekeepers of the culture all champion Kendrick.

All of this could be for nought however. We could be debating Hov Vs. K.Dot all day and come Sunday muthafukking Bruno Mars, or worse, Lorde (Y U C K) wins AOTY

DAMN being the most critically acclaimed means little when every album in the category is. This isn't Swift vs. K. Dot. And the Grammys favor big sellers when some old safe veteran isn't around. Sinatra, Beck and many others got the we fukked up back then win. If you give it to Hov you're acknowledging that hip hop gets that same rub. And again, it's your last opportunity to award that era. No one from that era will be up for this ever again. Kendrick will have other years. The 90s dudes won't.

 

[Ziggiy]

Vanity Fair says this is Kendrick’s year

Who Should Win? Kendrick Lamar deserves this award in every sense of the word, not only because Damn is one of the best albums of the year, or one of the biggest-selling, or one of the most critically beloved, or because he’s been nominated twice before in this category and should have won both times.

Damn should win because it touches on so many defining aspects of 2017, musical and otherwise: it’s complex and minimalist, confrontational and hooky, all in equal measure. It makes you think and it makes you dance. It’s exquisitely personal and unabashedly egalitarian; apropos of our times, yet completely timeless. Most important, Damn does all of this while being a joy to listen to. No artist has achieved this balance quite like Lamar this year and certainly none has done so while still making red-hot radio records. There might be a lot we’d like to forget about 2017, but Damn sure isn’t one of them.


Who Will Win? Lorde’s Medodrama is a breathtaking achievement: an intricate, cohesive, and candid coming-of-age exploration by one of pop’s singular voices. Alas, it lacked the cultural saturation of her last album and received, strangely enough, only this single nomination in the biggest category of the year, a signal that Lorde lacks broad support from the Academy’s voters.

It would be hard to say Mars’s album wasn’t huge (it’s currently on its third Top 10 hit) and yet 24K Magic, an impeccably made and stupendously fun album, is a little lightweight for a category that typically rewards the appearance of Importance.

Awaken, My Love! was a breakthrough achievement for Childish Gambino, but its impact, as well Donald Glover’s stature in popular music, feel fairly minor for such an award (then again, the Grammys have shocked us before). There’s a chance Damn and 4:44 might split the rap vote, with voters likely rewarding Jay-Z for his entire body of work rather than this particular album, in which case Mars or Lorde could slip through.

But there’s a vibe in the ether that everyone appears to understand: this is Kendrick’s year.

 

[Illeye buckmatic]

Hoping kendrick wins it. Damn was clearly the aoty

 

[Ziggiy]

The Guardian is the FIRST publication I’ve read who predicts Hov to win AOTY

This is the first time Jay-Z has been nominated for this award, on his 13th attempt, and so he could well be the Sam Rockwell of the Grammys – the person who will win because of a long career rather than their best ever work.

But he has a titanic battle against Kendrick Lamar’s Damn. Jay is sequestered off from the most listeners in Tidal’s ivory tower – his album is invisible on the streaming services used by the vast majority of people – while Lamar’s is not; there is no doubt as to which MC is at the heart of today’s hip-hop culture, and whose flow is most exciting. Giving it to Jay, when his wife was denied the same award last year by Adele, is an optical wrinkle that academy voters may want to avoid, too. But then again, it’s a thoughtful, frank album, dubious opinions about Jewish property ownership aside – and Jay continues to teach Lamar everything he knows about turning solipsism into social commentary, be it making your passage from the ghetto a Horatio Algerstory, or ruminating on your own blackness as a way to explore everyone else’s. Jay is also an icon of the US music industry, and is under-rewarded, at least in terms of major gongs.

With her raw-hearted, anthemic songwriting – and her sheer charisma and iconography – Lordehas a chance, but the lack of dial-shifting hits will wither her challenge. Awaken, My Love! is a little too uneven to win, and Mars’s album is very entertaining, but the sheer level of pastiche makes it a worthy winner of the 1987 award.

Will win: Jay Z
Should win: Kendrick Lamar