-Nusrat Farhana Naisa
The Grammy Award is known to acknowledge the achievements of music artists in the industry worldwide. The Recording Academy holds the annual presentation featuring prominent musicians and artists like Beyoncé, Eminem and Ariana (and more). You’ve probably seen four Grammys awarded to Billie Eilish recently. It has its terrific reputation for over half a century now. But for some past few years numerous allegations and conspiracies has made its way to the fan base. Earlier in 2020, the Weekend accused Grammy of corruption after failing to receive any nominations for the 2021 awards. He tweeted “The Grammys remain corrupt” calling out the Recording Academy. Following with “You owe me, my fans and industry transparency”. Another rise of conflicts merged regarding the Best Rap Album Award given to Cardi B where records say Travis Scott deserved it better. Where some fans clearly supported her given that she gave her best in while was carrying a baby the whole time during her Album Invasion of Privacy.
Not only biased nominations but the Academy has been alleged to be biased against black artists and repeated target of criticism. “Since the inception of the Grammys in 1957, only ten black artists have won Album of the Year Award “– The Daily Beast. This racial bias also includes Asians in a large proportion given that BTS is the first k-pop group ever to win a Grammy. This doesn’t end here, the internal committee of the Academy that handles the nomination process is also pretty unrevealed and accused of white supremacy. US superstar Beyoncé is way out in front of the field with a swag of nine nominations in this year's coveted music awards. Riding on the huge success of her album Black Parade, dedicated to the Black Lives Matter movement, Beyoncé is set to be the big winner with her nine nominations in eight categories
Reporters have linked these up with recent firing of the Head of The Recording academy, Deborah Dugan, who also filed several reports including sexual assault, work harassment and of course influencing the nomination process by long term producers of the Grammy. There also have been different allegations of discrimination and abuse of authority. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) found evidence linking several emails to Deborah by executives of the Academy proving the allegations true. The complaint came just days before the group's Grammy Awards and days after Dugan was put on administrative leave for what the Academy called "misconduct."
Deborah says she was put on administrative leave three weeks after she sent an email to the Academy's managing director of human resources in which she outlined numerous bombshell allegations against the organization and its "historically male dominated leadership," according to the EEOC complaint. Deborah fired back after her termination
"I was recruited and hired by the Recording Academy to make positive change; unfortunately, I was not able to do that as its CEO," Dugan said in a statement Monday. "So, instead of trying to reform the corrupt institution from within, I will continue to work to hold accountable those who continue to self-deal, taint the Grammy voting process and discriminate against women and people of color. Artists deserve better.”
Currently the Academy is under serious observation and the controversy is still going on. Several celebrities still refuse to perform or attend the ceremony .The fans expect transparency in both the nomination process and committees. The 63rd Grammy Awards is still suffering from conspiracies but change is yet to come. While some celebrities are on cloud nine hovering with Grammys the other ones are not even nominated for praiseworthy music. All in all, the world has its eyes on it with the doubt that whether the 63 year old honor for worldwide musicians will be back on its feet with respect.
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