Grammys
Page: 44
05/22/2023
Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” and SZA’s “Kill Bill” will probably go head-to-head again on Music’s Biggest Night.
05/22/2023
America still loves The Beach Boys. A Grammy Salute to the Beach Boys, which aired on CBS on Sunday April 9, was No. 1 in its time period with 5.18 million viewers and was the night’s No. 2 primetime broadcast in viewers. (The night’s champ was its lead-in, the venerable 60 Minutes, with 6.43 million viewers.)
The two-hour program had the largest audience for a Grammy Salute special since A Grammy Salute to Prince, which aired on April 21, 2020.
Here’s a sign of how just long The Beach Boys have been a cultural institution. The band first hit the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1962, more than six years before 60 Minutes, one of the longest running shows in TV history, went on the air.
A Grammy Salute to the Beach Boys was produced by Tenth Planet Productions. Joel Gallen, Rick Krim and Irving Azoff served as executive producers and Rick Austin as co-executive producer. Gallen also directed the special.
The special featured performances by Andy Grammar, Beck, Jim James, Brandi Carlile, John Legend, Charlie Puth, Fall Out Boy, Foster the People, Hanson, Norah Jones, Lady A, John Legend, Little Big Town, Luke Spiller, Taylor Momsen, Michael McDonald, Take 6, Mumford & Sons, My Morning Jacket, Pentatonix, LeAnn Rimes, St. Vincent, and Weezer.
It also featured appearances by fellow music icons Elton John and Bruce Springsteen; actors Tom Hanks, Drew Carey and John Stamos; Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. and former chair of the academy’s board of trustees Jimmy Jam.
The Beach Boys entered into a partnership with Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group (Iconic) in 2021 to preserve and grow their legacy in a digital era. Iconic also represents such artists as Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Linda Ronstadt, David Crosby and Stephen Stills.
“This celebration highlights, once again, the power of the Beach Boys music to influence today’s biggest artists and reach new generations of fans,” said Jimmy Edwards, president of Iconic.
Taylor Swift has a reputation as one of the finest songwriters of her generation. Grammy voters seem to agree – she has received six song of the year nominations since 2009, which puts her in a tie with Lionel Richie and Paul McCartney for the most by any songwriter in Grammy history.
Richie wrote five of his six song of the year nominees by himself. He teamed with Michael Jackson to write his sixth, “We Are the World.”
By contrast, Swift and McCartney wrote just one of their song of the year nominees by themselves. Swift was the sole writer of “Lover.” McCartney was the sole writer of “Ebony and Ivory.”
Swift teamed with Liz Rose to write two of her nominated songs; with Max Martin and Shellback to write two others; and with Aaron Dessner to write one. McCartney and John Lennon were credited as co-writers of all five nominated songs that were recorded by The Beatles.
“Anti-Hero,” which Swift co-wrote with Jack Antonoff, seems very likely to be nominated for song of the year when the nods for the 66th annual Grammy Awards are announced later this year. That would give her a tiebreaking seventh nomination.
Unlike McCartney and Richie, Swift has yet to win in the category. McCartney won on his third nomination, for “Michelle,” a charming tune from The Beatles’ Rubber Soul that few would regard as one of his or their greatest songs. Richie won on his sixth nomination, for USA for Africa‘s “We Are the World.” That song raised millions to fight starvation in Africa and hunger here in the U.S., but it’s more admired for its purpose and intentions than its songcraft.
As Swift launches her 52-date The Eras Tour in Glendale, Ariz. on Friday (March 17), we have prepared this list showing you each of these songwriters’ six Grammy nominations – in a handy, side-by-side format.
First nominations
Image Credit: Rick Diamond/GI
Swift: “You Belong With Me” (2009, co-written with Liz Rose)
Richie: “Three Times a Lady” (1978)
McCartney: “A Hard Day’s Night” (1964, co-written with John Lennon)
Notes: All three of these songs were smash hits. “You Belong With Me,” the third single from Fearless, reached No. 2 on the Hot 100 – Swift’s highest ranking to that point. Commodores’ recording of “Three Times a Lady,” the lead single from Natural High, logged two weeks at No. 1. The Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night,” from the soundtrack to their film of the same name, topped the Hot 100 for two weeks – and was the first rock song to receive a song of the year nod.
Second nominations
Swift: “Shake It Off” (2014, co-written with Max Martin and Shellback)
Richie: “Lady” (1980)
McCartney: “Yesterday” (1965, co-written with John Lennon)
Notes: All three of these songs were No. 1 hits on the Hot 100 for four or more weeks. (Four weeks for the Swift and Beatles hits; six weeks for Kenny Rogers’ recording of “Lady.”) Rogers’ smash was the lead single from his perfectly-timed, Billboard 200-topping Kenny Rogers’ Greatest Hits. “Shake It Off” was the lead single from 1989. Though “Yesterday” didn’t win the Grammy, many regard it as one of the greatest songs ever written.
Third nominations
Swift: “Blank Space” (2015, co-written with Max Martin and Shellback)
Richie: “Endless Love” (1981)
McCartney: “Michelle” (1966, co-written with John Lennon)
Notes: “Blank Space,” the second single from 1989, topped the Hot 100 for seven weeks, making it Swift’s longest-running No. 1 to that point. “Endless Love,” which Richie wrote for the film of the same name and which he recorded with Diana Ross, logged nine weeks at No. 1, making it Richie’s longest-running No. 1 ever. The Beatles didn’t release any singles from Rubber Soul, but a cover version by David and Jonathan reached No. 18 on the Hot 100.
Fourth nominations
Image Credit: Tony Evans/Timelapse Library Ltd./GI
Swift: “Lover” (2019)
Richie: “All Night Long (All Night)” (1983)
McCartney: “Hey Jude” (1968, co-written with John Lennon)
Notes: “Lover,” the third single from Swift’s album of the same name, reached No. 10 on the Hot 100. “All Night Long (All Night),” the lead single from Can’t Slow Down, logged four weeks at No. 1. “Hey Jude” led the chart for nine weeks, making it McCartney’s longest-running No. 1 hit – with The Beatles or post-Beatles. It was one of only two singles to top the Hot 100 for nine weeks in the 1960s, the other being Percy Faith’s shimmering instrumental “Theme from a Summer Place.” (That 1960 smash was nominated for song of the year despite being an instrumental, something that couldn’t happen today.) As noted above, “Lover” is Swift’s only song of the year nominee that she wrote by herself.
Fifth nominations
Swift: “Cardigan” (2020, co-written with Aaron Dessner)
Richie: “Hello” (1984)
McCartney: “Let It Be” (1970, co-written with John Lennon)
Notes: All three songs were No. 1 hits on the Hot 100. “Cardigan,” the lead single from Folklore, spent one week on top. “Hello,” the third single from Can’t Slow Down, spent two weeks on top. “Let It Be,” from the documentary film of the same name, spent two weeks on top.
Sixth nominations
Swift: “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (The Short Film)” (2022, co-written with Liz Rose)
Richie: “We Are the World” (1985, co-written with Michael Jackson)
McCartney: “Ebony and Ivory” (1982)
Notes: Again, all three songs were No. 1 hits on the Hot 100. The expanded version of “All Too Well,” the lead single from Red (Taylor’s Version), spent one week on top. It set a new record as the song with the longest playing time to reach No. 1. USA for Africa’s “We Are the World” topped the chart for four weeks. “Ebony and Ivory,” a glossy plea for brotherhood and understanding across racial lines, topped the Hot 100 for seven weeks. McCartney wrote the song by himself and recorded it with Stevie Wonder. While everyone admired the song’s good intensions, the song hasn’t aged especially well. A Saturday Night Live parody version by Eddie Murphy (as Wonder) and Joe Piscopo (as Frank Sinatra) skewered the song. Sample lines: Murphy as Wonder: “I am dark, and you are light.” Piscopo as Sinatra: “You are blind as a bat, and I have sight!”
When Bonnie Raitt‘s touching ballad “Just Like That” won the Grammy for song of the year, the singer-songwriter seemed just as shocked as the crowd. “I am just totally humbled,” she said while accepting the award.
Though she is a decorated and critically acclaimed musician, with 11 Grammys and five top 40 hits on the Hot 100 to her name, Raitt’s “Just Like That” was the least commercially successful song up for the category this year by a long shot. Despite not cracking the Hot 100 chart, “Just Like That” managed to beat out the nine other nominated songs, each of which ranked in the top 20 of the Hot 100 this year, including two No. 1 tracks (“As it Was” by Harry Styles and “About Damn Time” by Lizzo). Many see Raitt’s win as proof that the top Grammy awards do not necessarily always go to those with the most commercial or widespread success.
This particular award win is surprising for Raitt in more ways than one. Song of the year is one of four top awards given out each year by the Recording Academy, along with record of the year, album of the year and best new artist, and it is the only one of the big four that honors the craft of songwriting specifically. Raitt, as she admitted in her acceptance speech, “[doesn’t] write a lot of songs,” but she did write “Just Like That” singlehandedly.
So how much did “Just Like That” earn in publishing royalties for Raitt as its only songwriter, and how much did the Grammy win help the song commercially?
Billboard estimates that before the Grammys, “Just Like That” had earned Raitt over $6,000 in publishing royalties from its release date (April 22, 2022) to the week of the Grammys, which aired on Feb. 5, 2023, for her work as a songwriter from U.S. streaming, sales and airplay combined. In the two weeks following the show, those formats earned her another nearly $6,000. In other words, Raitt earned almost as much from the song in just two weeks as she did in the more than nine months prior to the broadcast.
Raitt owns her publishing, and she houses her songwriting catalog under two entities, Kokomo Music and Open Secret Music. In 2018, she entered an arrangement with indie publishing house Bluewater Music to administer her publishing catalog worldwide. Because she owns her publishing and wrote “Just Like That” by herself, the vast majority of the money she earns from the song will end up in Raitt’s pocket, with deductions likely only made to pay Bluewater Music administration fees and whatever cut her manager makes.
Overall, since the release of “Just Like That,” Billboard estimates that Raitt has earned a total of about $12,000 in publishing royalties from streams and sales of the song. The majority of that came from both physical sales of the album on which the song appears — also called Just Like That — and U.S. on-demand audio streams, according to Luminate. In the two-week period after the Grammys, song downloads and streaming were the biggest source of royalties by far.
In terms of streaming alone, Raitt earned only about $975 worth of publishing royalties from U.S. on-demand audio streams in the almost 10 months that elapsed between the song’s release and the week of the Grammys. But in just the two weeks since her song of the year win, she has earned a little over $2,000 in publishing royalties for U.S. on-demand audio streams.
The week before the Grammys, dated Jan. 27-Feb. 2, “Just Like That” was racked up 44,000 on-demand audio streams in the U.S. The week after the Grammys, dated Feb. 3-9, on-demand U.S. audio streams increased by 3,028% to 1.377 million, according to Luminate. The massive spike, however, did not hold steady in the following week, dated Feb. 10-16, when the number of U.S. on-demand audio streams fell to just over 410,000.
On the physical sales side, Raitt earned over $4,000 in publishing royalties from selling copies of her albums through to the night of the Grammys. In the two weeks after the awards show, Raitt earned about $700.
Along with increased consumption in the sales and streaming categories, “Just Like That” has also sparked interest at radio. The week before the Grammys, it was played just a handful of times, but in the two weeks after her win, she received a total of 144 radio spins, according to Luminate. While still not significant enough to push her to the top of any charts, airplay could contribute solidly toward her future publishing earnings if it continues to gain traction.
So far, the big Grammy win for “Just Like That” doesn’t appear to be boosting sales and streaming activity for Raitt’s overall catalog in the U.S. While weekly catalog album consumption activity jumped to over 9,000 copies on average in each of the two weeks after the show — up from the weekly average of over 3,000 copies before the show — all of that gain is coming from the Just Like That album.
After Bonnie Raitt’s “Just Like That” won the Grammy Award for song of the year, her team put out a shorter radio edit of the tear-jerking ballad — and then proceeded to do almost no further radio advertising or promotion.
“I’m afraid the song is not something we feel an aggressive marketing approach fits,” Kathy Kane, Raitt’s manager, says by email. “We didn’t put it forth as a single with a specific [radio] impact date aggressively going for ads. We are simply here to support those interested in the song.”
The lack of a radio strategy around “Just Like That” is distinct from the strategy around the album, which has the same title. A year ago, before Raitt put out the album on her own label, Redwing Records, she attended a Zoom video call with programmers as part of a marketing campaign to extend the rock, pop and blues star’s long history of radio hits. The strategy worked: Just Like That made its debut last May at No. 1 on several Billboard charts, including Top Current Album Sales, and hit No. 6 on Top Rock Albums.
But when “Just Like That” won song of the year, Raitt’s team opted for a low-key promotional effort for the country-leaning ballad about a woman who loses her son and falls in love with the man who received his heart. While the song topped Billboard’s Rock Digital Song Sales chart and hit No. 6 on Digital Song Sales the week after the Grammys, radio spins increased from just 27 to 41 over the past week.
That said, some influential radio programmers are working to boost the airplay.
“Hopefully, I can be the station that breaks these records so other stations can follow,” says Dan Mathews, program director for Top 40 stations Rhythm 105.9 in Sacramento, Calif., Jamz 99.3 FM in Salina, Kan., and Hitz 90.5 in Edgar, Neb., all of which now air “Just Like That” every two hours. “Our listenership has gone up just playing that record.”
The low-key approach has had sporadic success elsewhere. Dennis Constantine, a longtime adult album alternative programmer, added two or three “Just Like That” spins per day to 92.5 the River in Boston and The Point in Burlington, Vt. (They play the original version, not the shorter radio edit.) “We were playing other tracks off the album, and when that won best song of the year, we started playing it everywhere,” says Constantine, program director for the two stations and a consultant for another in Flagstaff, Ariz. “It makes sense. She’s a legend in our format.”
SZA played just a small role at the 65th annual Grammy Awards on Feb. 5. She presented best música urbana album to Bad Bunny, and she was on hand as a nominee for best melodic rap performance for her featured role (alongside Future) on DJ Khaled’s “Beautiful.” (They lost.)
Expect SZA to play a much larger role at the 66th annual Grammy Awards early next year. Her sophomore album, SOS, is a top contender for nominations for both album of the year and best progressive R&B album. “Kill Bill,” the album’s biggest hit to date, has a good chance at record and song of the year nods.
This would be SZA’s first album of the year nod as a lead artist. Her debut album, Ctrl, was nominated for best urban contemporary album (the former name of best progressive R&B album). Three songs from the album – “The Weekend,” “Supermodel” and “Love Galore” (featuring Travis Scott) – were nominated in various R&B and rap categories. In addition, SZA was nominated for best new artist, but lost to Alessia Cara.
SZA has been nominated twice for both record and song of the year. “All the Stars,” a collab with Kendrick Lamar from Black Panther, was nominated for both awards in 2018. “Kiss Me More,” a collab with Doja Cat, was nominated for both awards in 2021. The latter track also led to SZA’s first album of the year nod, as a featured artist on Doja’s Planet Her.
“Good Days,” a one-off single at the time that was included on SOS, was nominated for best R&B song in November 2021.
Many of the producers and featured artists on SOS have Grammy awards or nominations on their resumes. Six Grammy winners – Babyface, Jeff Bhasker, Darkchild (Rodney Jerkins), DJ Dahi, Emile Haynie and Shellback – are among the producers of SOS. All four of the featured artists on the album – Scott, Don Toliver, Phoebe Bridgers and Ol’ Dirty Bastard – are past Grammy nominees.
SOS has ranked No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in nine of its 10 chart weeks to date. Ctrl is still riding high (it holds at No. 22) in its 297th week on the Billboard 200. “Kill Bill” is in its sixth week at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. SOS has also received warm reviews. It has a 90 rating at the review aggregation site Metacritic.com.
Three albums by Black female artists were nominated for album of the year in November – Beyoncé’s Renaissance, Lizzo’s Special and the deluxe edition of Mary J. Blige’s Good Morning Gorgeous – but no album by a Black female artist (as lead artist) has won the award since Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, which won in 1999.
SZA has received 15 Grammy nods to date, but has won just one award, for the aforementioned “Kiss Me More,” which won best pop duo/group performance. Expect her winning percentage to improve next year.
Beyoncé’s Renaissance returns to the top 10 of Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated Feb. 18) for the first time in three months, rising 56-10, following the diva’s multiple wins at the Grammy Awards (Feb. 5). The set sold 5,500 copies in the U.S. in the week ending Feb. 9 (up 138%), according to Luminate.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The album was last in the top 10 on the Oct. 29, 2022-dated list, when it ranked at No. 7.
Renaissance won the Grammy Award for best dance/electronic album (an award presented on-air during the CBS-TV broadcast of the main ceremony) while three of its songs won individual awards. “Break My Soul” won best dance/electronic recording, “Plastic Off the Sofa” took home best traditional R&B performance and “Cuff It” won best R&B song.
Beyoncé won four Grammys on Feb. 5, bringing her total of awards to 32 – breaking the record for the most wins in the Awards’ history (a feat that was promoted extensively during the CBS show).
In total, Beyoncé was nominated for nine Grammys at the ceremony, winning four. She was also up for album of the year (Renaissance), record of the year, song of the year (both for “Break My Soul”), best R&B performance (“Virgo’s Groove”) and best song written for visual media (“Be Alive”).
Elsewhere on Billboard’s album charts, Renaissance runs 30-8 on Top Current Album Sales, 24-11 on the Billboard 200 (its highest rank since the Nov. 12 chart, when it placed at No. 10), 10-5 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, 4-3 on Top R&B Albums and holds at No. 1 for an 11th week on Top Dance/Electronic Albums.
Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Top Current Album Sales lists the week’s best-selling current (not catalog, or older albums) albums by traditional album sales. Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, Top R&B Albums and Top Dance/Electronic Albums rank the week’s most popular R&B/hip-hop, R&B and dance/electronic albums, respectively, by units.
Back on Top Album Sales, TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION, which debuted atop the list a week ago, spends a second week at No. 1, with 43,000 copies sold (down 72%). The set has shifted 195,000 copies in its first two weeks of release – with 98% of that sum from CD sales.
Shania Twain’s new studio album Queen of Me debuts at No. 2 on Top Album Sales with 34,000 sold. It’s the country/pop superstar’s sixth top 10-charting effort on the list.
Taylor Swift’s former leader Midnights is a non-mover at No. 3 on Top Album Sales with 15,500 sold (down 12%).
Harry Styles’ Harry’s House zooms 21-4 with 10,000 sold (up 119%), following its two wins at the Grammy Awards (best pop vocal album and album of the year). Styles also performed the album’s hit single “As It Was” on the CBS broadcast. Meanwhile, best new artist winner Samara Joy reaches the top 10 for the first time as her album Linger Awhile vaults 87-5 with 6,500 sold (up 317%). The set also won the Grammy best jazz vocal album.
The charity compilation A Philly Special Christmas rises 7-6 on Top Album Sales despite a decline in sales (down 31% to 6,000 for the week). It’s the highest charting non-soundtrack compilation since 2020, when the all-star Now 74 set also hit No. 6 (May 16, 2020 chart). (Speaking of the Now That’s What I Call Music! franchise, the new Now 85 compilation debuts on the new chart at No. 13.)
The Philly album continues to perform well thanks to vinyl sales. 65% of its cumulative sales (20,500 of 31,500) are vinyl, with the remainder digital album purchases.
Michael Jackson’s Thriller rises 10-7 on Top Album Sales with nearly 6,000 sold (down less than 1%), Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours rebounds 13-8 with 5,500 (up 4%) and Stray Kids’ former No. 1 MAXIDENT climbs 22-9 with nearly 5,500 (up 21%).
In the week ending Feb. 9, there were 1.778 million albums sold in the U.S. (down 5.6% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 1.414 million (down 8.9%) and digital albums comprised 364,000 (up 9.9%).
There were 606,000 CD albums sold in the week ending Feb. 9 (down 16.2% week-over-week) and 801,000 vinyl albums sold (down 2.4%). Year-to-date CD album sales stand at 3.659 million (up 0.2% compared to the same time frame a year ago) and year-to-date vinyl album sales total 5.299 million (up 25.6%).
Overall year-to-date album sales total 11.037 million (up 6.4% compared to the same year-to-date time frame a year ago). Year-to-date physical album sales stand at 9.009 million (up 13.8%) and digital album sales total 2.029 million (down 17.4%).
Spike Lee didn’t mince words when it came to sharing his opinion about Beyoncé‘s loss at the 2023 Grammy Awards.
Speaking to The Guardian, the director explained that while he’s by no means “the male president of the Beyhive,” he does have “love and support” for the superstar. “Her album is amazing,” he continued. “I know she’s won multiple Grammys, but four times nominated for album of the year and she’s lost every time? No disrespect to those artists like Adele or Harry Styles who won – it’s not their fault – but that’s some straight-up bullsh–.”
She is the most-awarded artist in Grammy history, but Beyoncé has gone zero-for-four when it comes to album of the year nominations as a lead artist. The singer has also only ever one once in any of the Big Four categories — taking home song of the year in 2009 for “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).”
In his interview, Lee eventually widened the scope of his remarks to reflect on Black artistry as a whole. “We all know their work is great, because art speaks for itself,” the BlacKkKlansman filmmaker said. “But then it always comes down to this tricky territory of validation. Do black artists say ‘F–k it,’ or seek white validation and chase awards?”
While Beyoncé is still without a Grammy for album of the year, her latest single “Cuff It” reached a new high mark on the Hot 100 this week by leaping to No. 6 (chart dated Feb. 18).
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Jacopo Raule / Getty
If you watched the 2023 Grammys, you probably know that Lil Wayne was honored with the Global Impact Award. What most people likely don’t know is that the award was reportedly going to none other than pop legend Janet Jackson, until things got too deep when Jantet’s people demanded CBS atone for villainizing her after the infamous Super Bowl XXXVIII half-time show incident with Justin Timberlake.
Actually, TMZ Sports noted that it’s unclear whether both Wayne and Jackson were supposed to receive the award or if Wayne got it once things went south with the “Control” singer. But what is clear is that since the half-time show where Jackson’s breast was exposed due to a wardrobe malfunction was broadcast by CBS, and CBS disinvited Janet to that year’s Grammys ceremony because of it, the network was going to need to make things right before Ms. Jackson (if you’re nasty) just lets bygones be bygones and graces the stage this year. Obviously, none of the above ended up happening.
From TMZ Sports:
Sources connected to The Grammys tell us … the Grammys wanted to bestow Janet with a Global Impact Award, but there was a snag. Recording Academy honchos wanted Janet to attend a pre-Grammy event with the Black Music Collective days before the main event to accept the award, but her schedule wouldn’t allow it. From there, we’re told discussions pivoted to a way Janet could receive the honor during the actual broadcast, but that presented another problem … CBS never made amends with Janet for making her persona non grata after the wardrobe malfunction
It was Super Bowl XXXVIII, broadcast on CBS, when Justin Timberlake ripped Janet’s top, revealing her breast. The network received a ton of flack over the incident, and CBS CEO Les Moonves pulled Janet’s invite to the Grammys that year. Our sources say Janet’s team and Grammy organizers began talking about ways CBS could either apologize or figure out a way to acknowledge how she was treated by the network, but things just got too complicated and talks ended.Honestly, Janet Jackson and her team should be commended for sticking to their guns and not allowing CBS or the Grammys to be blessed with her presence without first acknowledging the harm they caused. It just sounds like Janet chose herself over some janky award stage that didn’t want her when it wasn’t convenient. And that was the right choice.–
Photo: Getty
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Paul Archuleta / Getty
Former MC Dee Barnes published a lengthy statement calling out the Grammys after they named what she deemed the “Ike Turner Award” after Dr. Dre.
In an op-ed published in Rolling Stone on Wednesday (Feb. 8), the journalist and rapper spoke out about the move by the Black Music Collective to bestow that honor. Barnes was assaulted by the producer and rapper when he was then a member of N.W.A. At the time, she was the host of Pump It Up!, a Hip-Hop show on Fox that ran for two years and was key to the rise of the culture. Dre issued an apology in 2015 to the New York Times, not naming anyone in particular.
In the op-ed, Barnes spoke about how she initially was welcoming of the Impact Award being given to industry legends Missy Elliott, Epic Records CEO Sylvia Rhone and Lil Wayne along with Dr. Dre. Her position changed once she learned that the award would be named after him.
“Everybody wants to separate the art from the artist, and sometimes that’s just not possible,” she said, referring to his past history of abuse by saying “to name an award after someone with that type of history in the music industry, you might as well call it the Ike Turner Award.”
After speaking out about the struggles she’s endured, Barnes was shut out from the industry. Which led to her battling to house and provide for herself on a long-term basis. “The blacklisting I’ve faced still feels active, and it took me a long time to accept that,” she said.
Barnes likened her situation to the vitriol that Megan Thee Stallion endured after being the victim of assault by Tory Lanez. “I watched what happened to my little sister Megan, and it just was heartbreaking to me because we have not changed in all these years.” She ended the op-ed by revealing that she is working on a memoir and getting back into journalism, thanks to the support of Black women writers and journalists.
She also hoped for a chance to settle things once and for all with Dr. Dre in a face-to-face summit. “But I think that’s going to be the only thing to turn the tide, so to speak — if we have a come-to-Jesus moment in person, in public. Because everything happened publicly, it’s got to have closure publicly.”
[embedded content]