When the nomination and awards seasons roll around, the Grammy Awards and the Recording Academy tend to be the recipients of plenty of ire. That seems to have come to a head in 2020 and 2021, though, as for one reason or another, lots of people have taken issue with the ceremony. Zayn is one of the latest high-profile figures to take a shot at the Academy, and it was quite a shot that he took.
Yesterday, he tweeted, “F*ck the grammys and everyone associated. Unless you shake hands and send gifts, there’s no nomination considerations. Next year I’ll send you a basket of confectionary.” After letting that stew for a few hours and gain traction (as of this post, the tweet has nearly a quarter of a million likes), Zayn apparently felt the need to clarify, so he followed up, “My tweet was not personal or about eligibility but was about the need for inclusion and the lack of transparency of the nomination process and the space that creates and allows favoritism, racism, and [networking] politics to influence the voting process.”
Fuck the grammys and everyone associated. Unless you shake hands and send gifts, there’s no nomination considerations. Next year I’ll send you a basket of confectionary.
— zayn (@zaynmalik) March 9, 2021
My tweet was not personal or about eligibility but was about the need for inclusion and the lack of transparency of the nomination process and the space that creates and allows favoritism, racism, and netwokring politics to influence the voting process
— zayn (@zaynmalik) March 10, 2021
Zayn’s latest album, Nobody Is Listening, was released on January 15, 2021, putting it outside of this year’s Grammys eligibility window, which is from September 1, 2019 to August 31, 2020.