The Grammy’s is dubitably the world’s leading society of music professionals dedicated to celebrating, honoring, and recognizing achievements in the music industry. The academy is responsible for handing out numerous awards each year to winners (artistes) in the U.S. apart from some other international categories.
However, they received major fire from most of the world back in February when Belcalis Almanzaar famously known as Cardi B won an award for Best rap album in a category where Travis Scott and Nicki Minaj were in. They were criticized for being political and biased, while attacking Cardi on various social media platforms.
As absurd as it may sound, I refuse to believe that a Grammy award in all it’s “shiny-ness” isn’t the true test of talent, in fact, many giants of music from the past never received Grammy awards but were recognized as the greatest of their times. Serving as inspiration, and models even years after their death.
1. Tupac Amaru Shakur (2pac)
In 2019, almost 22 years after his untimely demise, Tupac is still a household name. He was an American rapper and actor who changed the face of hip/hop back in the late 80’s to early 90’s before passing away in September 1996. He was indeed an icon, using his vocals to address and criticize the ills of society such as Police brutality, drug abuse and teen pregnancy. Despite being nominated for the award 6 times, 2pac never won a Grammy award. However, he will forever be immortalized and remembered as one of the bestselling music artists of all time having sold over 75 million records worldwide.
2. Onika Tanya Maraj (Nicki Minaj)
Its sad that most people who claim to be fans of Nicki came out troll her after she lost the award for “Best Rap Album” to Cardi B. Nicki Minaj is yet to win a Grammy award despite having up to 10 nominations in her bag. But the rapper is indubitably highly successful, having sold 21 million singles as a lead artist, 60 million singles as a featured artist, and over five million albums worldwide.
Since the beginning of her career as a rapper she has received many awards including 11 BET Awards,four Billboard Music Awards, six American Music Awards and four MTV Video Music Awards.
3. Jermaine Lamar Cole (J.cole)
Jcole is an American singer, rapper, and songwriter. He is the founder and owner of dreamville records. He has been gained so much prominence in the music scene since he started out his carrer , while receiving countless numerous accolades and achievements to his name. However, he also has never won a Grammy award, despite being nominated numerous times like in 2012 when he was nominated for best new artist but lost to Bon Iver. His latest album “KOD” which he released in 2018 was snubbed at the 2019 Grammy awards, Jcole quite instinctively wasn’t Happy about it but it didn’t stop him from celebrating wins of his fellow singers. He tweeted that seeing Cardi B win a grammy award for “Best rap album” made him feel like he won.