Kendrick gets overlooked at Grammys

By Luke Nozicka

The 56th Grammy’s on Sunday, hosted by LL Cool J, was full of twists and turns as most Grammy Awards nights are, but it was unfortunately the rap categories that really caught my eye this year.

Along with Daft Punk, Lorde and Pharrell Williams as some of the big time winners at this years award show, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis notably racked up some gold.

Macklemore and Lewis took home three rap Grammys. They won Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song for their track ‘Thrift Shop’ and to my surprise, Best Rap Album for ‘The Heist.’

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Macklemore and Lewis went up against some of the largest hip-hop/rap names in the business for Best Rap Album, such as Drake, Jay Z, Kanye West and my favorite artist Kendrick Lamar.

Personally, Lamar’s album ‘good kid, m.A.A.d city’ should have swept this category with ease. The album released in October 2012 consists of ever-popular singles such as ‘Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe,’ ‘Poetic Justice ft. Drake,’ ‘m.A.A.d city’ and radio dominant track ‘Swimming Pools.’

The album won a BET Hip-Hop Award for Album of the Year and a Soul Train Music Award for Album of the Year in 2013.

How did he not win a single Grammy Sunday?

Lamar first captured my attention in 2010 with his release of “Overly Dedicated.” The track that got my attention on it is entitled “Ignorance is Bliss,” where the Compton rapper talks more about hard times and the street life, rather than promoting his local thrift shop.

Since then, Lamar has released two studio albums and created one of the best upcoming hip-hop groups, Black Hippy. Black Hippy consists of Lamar, Schoolboy Q, Ab-Soul and Jay Rock, whose 2012 mixtape titled “Black Hippy,” has almost 99,000 downloads on DatPiff.com

Their “U.O.E.N.O Remix” also has become quite a hit in the hip-hop community.

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Lamar was up for seven awards Sunday night, as were Macklemore and Lewis. ‘Good kid, m.A.A.d city’ gained Lamar four of those seven nominations. Aside from Best Rap Album, Lamar nominations included Best New Artist, Album of the Year and Best Rap Performance.

Artists and fellow rappers across the Internet expressed their love for Lamar, with tweets from Schoolboy Q, Vince Staples, Ab-Soul and many others.

Mac Miller tweeted “go kendrick go” and followed two hours later with another that read “no grammy for kendrick tho. not 1. not 1 single grammy.”

Lamar performed along side Imagine Dragons at the award show in an unexpected live ‘m.A.A.d city’ and ‘Radioactive’ collaboration, which stole the spotlight of the night’s performances and could be considered one of the greatest Grammy acts of all time.

Fuse.tv called the performance the “end-all, be-all performance of the night.” Imagine Dragons won Best Rock Performance for “Radioactive.”

After the show, Imagine Dragons released a CDQ version of the featured track via iTunes. While the studio version is not the same as the live performance version, it still features a verse from Lamar.

Following the awards show, according to the Hollywood Reporter, Macklemore sent Kendrick a long text message, which in part read, “You got robbed. I wanted you to win. You should have.”

Luke Nozicka can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter at @LukeNozicka, or 536-3311 ext. 268.

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