“Pound the alarm: Nicki Minaj went after the Grammy Awards. The 37-year-old rapper slammed the award show on Tuesday after nominations were announced for the 63rd annual Grammy Awards in 2021. Referencing her nomination for Best New Artist in 2012, Minaj denounced the Grammys for snubbing her that year and honoring fellow nominee Bon Iver instead. “Never forget,” wrote Minaj, citing her seven simultaneous songs on the Billboard charts as evidence of why she should’ve won that year. She called the indie folk band headed by white frontman Justin Vernon “the white man 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 In addition to her Best New Artist nomination in 2012, Minaj’s album “Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded” had been nominated for Best Rap Album and her single “Moment 4 Life,” featuring Drake, had been nominated for Best Rap Performance. Despite having been nominated for 10 Grammy Awards in her career thus far and being the highest-ranked female rapper on Billboard’s list of the top artists of the 2010s, Minaj has yet to win a single Grammy. The Grammy Awards have been accused of racism for not honoring artists of color to the same degree as white artists. Notably, in the show’s six-decade history, only 11 Black artists have won Album of the Year — Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Natalie Cole, Lionel Richie, Lauryn Hill, Outkast, Herbie Hancock, Whitney Houston, Quincy Jones and Bruno Mars. Earlier this year, upon winning the award for Best Rap Album, Tyler the Creator called out the Recording Academy for relegating Black artists to the rap or urban categories. “I’m half and half on it. On one side, I’m very grateful that what I make can be acknowledged in a world like this, but also it sucks that whenever we — and I mean guys that look like me — do anything that’s genre-bending, they always put it in the rap or urban category,” he said in a statement to the press. “I don’t like that ‘urban’ word, it’s just a politically correct way to say the ‘n’ word to me.” Tyler, The Creator calls out the #Grammys on their racism when it comes to music genres pic.twitter.com/rzWe2lR3xO— Odd Future Fans (@itsOddFuture) January 27, 2020 He went on to call the rap nomination “a backhanded compliment.” Bon Iver has not responded publicly to Minaj’s tweet. HuffPost has reached out to the band and the Recording Academy for comment.
