Drake Doesn’t Want His Grammys, Mainly Because ‘Hotline Bling’ Is Not A Rap Song

This year, when Adele won Album of the Year over Beyoncé, the internet engaged in the now-annual ‘The Grammys have a diversity problem‘ conversation. Adele asked “what the fuck” Beyoncé has to do to win the accolade, blaming how “traditional” the voting body is. Days before the ceremony, Frank Ocean called the awards “faulty” in its tendency to overlook black artists.

Now Drake, who was also nominated for Album of the Year and won Best Rap/Sung Performance and Best Rap Song for ‘Hotline Bling’, has accused the Grammys of imposing strict and nonsensical genre restrictions on his music because of his race. His reasoning? ‘Hotline Bling’ isn’t even a rap song! Yeah, fair point actually.

“The only category that they can manage to fit me in is in a rap category, maybe because I’ve rapped in the past or because I’m black,” he said in an interview with UK’s DJ Semtex.

“I won two awards last night, but I don’t even want them ‘cause it just feels weird for some reason. It doesn’t feel right to me. I feel almost like alienated or you’re trying to purposely alienate me by making me win rap [awards] or just pacify me by handing me something, putting me in that category ‘cause it’s the only place you can figure out where to put me.”

Drake claimed that he was frustrated that despite his notorious genre fluidity and unabashed embrace of the mainstream (he was the highest-selling artist of 2016) his pop singles aren’t recognised as so. Discussing his hit ‘One Dance’, Drake said he was confused as to why the Grammys seemed to ignore it over ‘Hotline Bling’.

“There’s pop obligations they have and fluked out and got one of the biggest pop songs of the year,” he said. “That is a pop song and I’m proud of that. I love the rap world and I love the rap community, but I write pop songs for a reason… but I never get any credit for that.”

You can catch the whole conversation below.