The Grammys' Bias Against The Soundcloud Generation

When Swedish sound engineer, Ljung, created Soundcloud in October 2008, it was originally just a platform for him and his friends to share music privately. However, over the past fourteen years, it has been a platform for some of the greatest musical geniuses from the most recent musical generation to blossom. Propelling artists such as Juice WRLD, XXXTentacion, and Lil Uzi Vert to stardom by giving them somewhere to share their music. Yet, many artists who have come off this platform, with their massive fanbases, have failed to be even noticed by the Grammys no matter how good of a year they may have had. Apart from the rare instance of Billie Eilish and Lorde, almost every single artist coming off Soundcloud, reaching back to the first artists off the platform such as Chance the Rapper, to more recent ones such as The Kid Laroi, have been left out by the Grammys. Opening up a massive argument over whether or not the Grammys truly did disrespect these artists, and if so, how many have missed out on their big break because of it? 

SoundCloud rappers faced bias against them countless times at the Grammys. Not all SoundCloud rappers were restricted by the Grammys at first, with several artists coming off the platform such as Chance The Rapper and Kendrick Lamar being recognized by the Grammys in some form. Although, as 2017 rolled around, a new Soundcloud generation came to prominence that would divide public opinion; a generation that would promote a new type of music, known as emo rap. Emo rap is a fusion of beats from hip-hop, rap, or even rock songs, with lyrics coming from darker realms. The first massive artist to use this combination of beats and lyrics was Lil Peep, who reached the mainstream in late 2016, with his album, Hellboy. The rapper, whose real name is Gustav Elijah Ahr, caught the attention of many listeners with his lyrics detailing his struggles apart from his love life, such as drugs and depression. A common mix that many would learn to love over the next two years, as the Soundcloud generation took over the mainstream. Artists such as XXXTentacion, Lil Uzi Vert, and Ski Mask The Slump God, released their first projects soon after, gaining billions of streams and more public attention than any of them could have foreseen. The following year would bring a new face to the stage that would shatter, not only Soundcloud but streaming records as a whole. Juice WRLD continued this brand of SoundCloud rappers, producing the second most-streamed hip-hop song of all time, “Lucid Dreams,” off his first studio album, Goodbye and Good Riddance. Artists such as Roddy Rich and 21 Savage also went about their business quietly throughout 2018 and 2019, with ten out of the top twenty-five most-streamed albums in 2018 coming from Soundcloud rappers, and eight in the top twenty-five throughout 2019. Despite all this love from fans across the world, the Grammys still refused to acknowledge these rappers in the major awards. 

Since Soundcloud rappers truly reached the mainstream in 2017, the winners of the four major awards in the general field for, Song of the Year, Record of the Year, Album of the Year, and Best New Artist have been looked at more closely. Starting the controversies back in 2018, when the majority of these major artists hit the big time, there was outrage when Alessia Cara won the award for best new artist. Lil Uzi Vert was the only SoundCloud rapper nominated, which was shocking to many considering the global reach of artists like Juice WRLD and XXXTentacion. Cara simply did not deserve to win the Grammy, and this is not just my opinion, there are facts to back this up. Her album that year only went gold, and even that was just in Canada, to put it into perspective, Juice WRLD’s Goodbye and Goodridance has gone platinum three times in the U.S., along with XXXTentacion’s ?. If they were basing it off her hit song, “Stay,” a collaboration with Zedd, it did reach over a billion streams, but five of XXXTentacion’s songs that year surpassed that number, and Juice WRLD surpassed that mark with four of his songs as well. Juice WRLD’s worldwide hit “Lucid Dreams,” was passed up for best song that year and record of the year, with Bruno Mars songs taking home both awards for songs not even in the top twenty most played that year. As if to insult their generation, even more, the Grammys rejected XXXTentacion from their in memoriam package after his tragic death earlier that year. That prompted severe criticism from thousands of fans and experts alike. Unfortunately, the disrespect did not stop there. 

Throughout the editions of the award shows between 2019 and 2021, Lil Uzi Vert, Ski Mask The Slump God, and Juice WRLD continued to revolutionize the music industry as we know it, along with new artists Lil Baby and Pop Smoke, yet still, none received any major acknowledgment from the Grammys. With the major disgrace coming in the Album of the Year category in 2020 when three albums did not win the award, and two of the three were not even nominated. Even though these three albums had all been called for by fans; the Grammy's bias was yet again shown, as albums that had no right to be there were nominated instead. So here are the facts about those three albums, and I’ll let you decide whether this was an overreaction or justified. 

Lil Baby’s, My Turn, was the most bought album of 2020, with songs featuring the likes of Gunna, Lil Wayne, and Future being particularly popular amongst fans. Nonetheless, it was not even nominated for album of the year, despite it charting inside the top six for thirteen weeks straight. Pop Smoke followed with his first posthumous album, Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon, that summer, after his tragic death in February of that year. Inside its first week, it gained 268 million streams, which is over three times the amount Folklore got inside its first week. These strong numbers would continue for almost an entire year, with the album breaking the record for most weeks for a rap album at number one, after staying at number one for twenty consecutive weeks. It additionally reached number one in eleven other countries. Ending with Juice WRLD’s Legends Never Die, sadly another posthumous project, one that should’ve rewarded the late, great, artist, whose real name is Jarad Anthony Higgins, with a Grammy award. The album landed Juice WRLD over fifty certifications, the most of any artist in the world that year. Five songs were in the top ten worldwide, and this was only the third time an artist had ever achieved the feat after the Beatles and Drake, yet none of them were nominated for Song of the Year. The album today is still bouncing around the top twenty in the country, nearly two years after its release, with acknowledgment from the Grammys in any fashion still lacking. 

From breaking through online in their bedrooms to performing for thousands, these young artists deserved to be recognized. Nonetheless, the Grammys refused to see this point of view, despite the cries of hundreds of thousands of fans. An award show such as this should represent the views of the collective music industry, something that should include the fans' thoughts when making a decision. They have made advances towards this in recent years, yet, a question still remains about those who missed their chance: Why did the Grammys continuously reject these popular artists? Was it because they didn’t fit their profile? Didn’t like their beats? Or the simple fact that they dared to talk about things differently, focusing more on problems in our current society, such as anxiety, depression, and addiction, instead of singing about another experience of love or money. So you must wonder, if this is the case, how many artists missed out on the chance of a lifetime just because some dinosaurs in a studio decided they didn’t want to further acknowledge the problems in today’s society.

By Luke Birch