Drake’s Place In The Macklemore Grammy Debate

Nobody saw this one coming. While a majority of the hip-hop community felt that Macklemore & Ryan Lewis “robbed” Kendrick Lamar of a much-deserved Best Rap Album Grammy for his masterpiece good kid, m.A.A.D. city, there was little debate following the ceremony about the other three albums that The Heist beat out–which is surprising in retrospect, seeing as they were projects from Drake, Kanye West and Jay Z. Recently, however, in an interview with Rolling Stone, Drake had comments both on Macklemore‘s divisive text message apology to Kendrick and The Heist‘s upset victory itself: “To name just Kendrick? That shit made me feel funny. No, in that case, you robbed everybody. We all need text messages!”

In some ways, what Drake is saying makes sense. After all, the backlash towards Macklemore‘s win was almost entirely geared towards the universal agreement that Kendrick should have won. However, one can see how the other three nominees, despite being arguably the three biggest names in hip-hop for quite some time now, would feel slighted by not receiving the same apology from the Seattle newcomer.

On the other hand, it would seem that the core of Drake‘s statement is his belief that gkmc was not the only nominated album superior to The Heist. In fact, by claiming that “we all need text messages,” Drake is essentially saying Macklemore‘s album was the worst of the entries and that he should be apologizing to all four of them for snatching the award from more deserved hands.

While many dedicated hip-hop enthusiasts, myself included, would tend to agree with the notion that The Heist, while a good album in its own right, was not the “Best Rap Album” of the bunch, it’s ironic that Drake is the first one to speak up about the texted apology. After all, the media’s most notorious loose cannon was amongst those who went home empty-handed on Grammy night. In addition, one could make the claim that Nothing Was the Same isn’t necessarily a pure rap album, or even Yeezus for that matter.

In the end, the controversy surrounding The Heist‘s Grammy success is emblematic of the mainstream’s approval of “socially conscious rap” and a crossroads for the genre as a whole. Macklemore and scores of other fans believed Kendrick put out the superior album, and whether or not Drake gets the apology he thinks he deserves is no longer relevant.