At the 2021 Grammy Awards, Fiona Apple is up for three prizes. That said, she’s not all that thrilled with the Recording Academy because Lukasz Gottwald, better known as Dr. Luke, earned a big nomination: He’s up for Record Of The Year for his work on Doja Cat’s “Say So,” on which he is credited as Tyson Trax. Dr. Luke, of course, has been a controversial figure since Kesha accused him of sexually assaulting her.
Referencing her own nomination in the women-heavy Best Rock Performance category for 2021 and and Kesha’s 2018 Grammys performance of “Praying,” Apple said in an interview with The Guardian (as Pitchfork notes):
“I keep going back to them putting Kesha on stage like, ‘We believe you’ — and I believe her — then two years later, f*cking Tyson Trax. Not to go back to that word, but it’s bullsh*t. The feeling of wanting to celebrate with these women was genuine. But I should have that feeling anyway. I don’t know if anybody who’s nominated can help having the thought: What would I do If I won? My vision was that I would just get up there with a sledgehammer and I wouldn’t say anything, I would take the Grammy and smash it into enough pieces to share and I would invite all the ladies up. My second thought was I wonder if I can get all these ladies to boycott this sh*t because of Dr. Luke.”
Read the full interview here and find the complete list of 2021 Grammy nominations here.