Lamar ended his performance with a new freestyle, seemingly calling out America’s industrial prison complex: “Set us back another 400 years, this is modern day slavery”.
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After grabbing up five of his 11 Grammy nominations on Monday night (Feb 15), Lamar delivered rousing renditions of The Blacker The Berry and Alright off his latest Grammy-nominated album, To Pimp a Butterfly.
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During his acceptance speech, Lamar thanked his family, God and his crew at Top Dawg Entertainment, all with a huge grin appropriately plastered on his face. Long known for their “issues” with hip-hop and RnB, the Grammys did their best last night to be “down with the kids” but ultimately showed their true colours when they could have finally moved forward in their journey to recognise the genres as the influential styles they are. “This is for Snoop Dogg, Doggystyle, this is for Illmatic, this is for Nas”. That the striking show was followed up by Seth MacFarlane presenting the award for Best Musical Theater Album must’ve been someone’s cruel joke. The awards he has won at the 58th Grammys already include Best Rap Performance (“Alright“), Best Rap/Sung Collaboration (“These Walls”, with Bilal, Anna Wise and Thundercat), Best Rap Song (“Alright“), Best Music Video (“Bad Blood”, with Taylor Swift) and Best Rap Album. Someone go check on Drake.
