Month: March 2021

The Los Angeles Clippers have, as happens so often in the NBA regular season, ridden a bit of a roller coaster through the first 40 games to a 25-15 record, good for fourth in the West. There was a stretch where they looked like one of the NBA’s very best, shooting the lights out and playing the elite defense they are capable of, running out to a 21-8 record. However, in their last 11 games they’ve stumbled at 4-7, not winning back-to-back games once in that stretch.

There have been absences that have accounted for some of their struggles and wins that show what they’re capable of, like beating the, at the time, red-hot Jazz and demolishing the Warriors coming out of the All-Star break. But too often they backed those performances up with no-shows, best illustrated by Sunday night’s pitiful showing against the Pelicans, at mostly full strength, in a 135-115 loss.

After Sunday’s loss, Kawhi Leonard was asked about his level of concern over this recent stretch, and expressed frustration with the lack of consistency the team has showed, via Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN.

“It’s very concerning,” Leonard said when asked what his level of concern is at over the slippage. “[If] we want to have a chance at anything, you gotta be consistent. You know, that’s what the great teams do, they’re consistent. They have their nights when, you know, the energy’s not there. But it’s all about consistency, from teams to players to coaches. That’s what makes a team great, players great, coaches great. A consistency of being, wanting to win, and doing pretty much the same habits of winning.”

Tyronn Lue echoed those sentiments, while also lamenting the team’s lack of physicality and how they allowed the Pelicans and Zion Williamson to steamroll them and dominate inside.

“I am not discouraged, because we have shown what we can do, and we can play at a high level,” Lue said. “But we got to do it every single night. We can’t keep talking about it. We got to f—ing … sorry, we got to do it.”

These aren’t issues unique to the Clippers, as top contenders often fall into spells of inconsistent play in the middle of the season as they struggle to get up for games against teams in the middle and bottom of the pack, who see a game with them as a chance to prove something. Matching that intensity on a nightly basis is among the toughest challenges in the NBA, but finding some motivation in a 4-7 stretch for a team with title aspirations also shouldn’t be too difficult. The question isn’t just whether they respond in their next game against a Mavs team that beat them by 50 the last time they played, but if they can stack some wins behind that. That’s at the crux of Leonard and Lue’s complaints, because this isn’t a team that’s proven it just has a switch to flip come playoff time. They need to find that consistency in the coming months and carry that through the playoffs, or else they’re in for another offseason being the butt of jokes and overrated talk.

In a bizarre, yet very on brand move for the eccentric billionaire, Elon Musk has added “Technoking” to his official title at Tesla. While there’s been little in the way of details on Musk’s new title, the educated guess is that it’s tied to Tesla’s recent $1.5 billion Bitcoin investment, which would also explain why the company’s Chief Financial Officer also scored a spiffy new title. And, for the record, these new monikers aren’t (entirely) Musk just being Musk. The official titles have been submitted in regulatory forms to the SEC. Via The Verge:

The electric automaker announced the head-scratching sobriquet in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, along with chief financial officer Zach Kirkhorn’s new position as “Master of Coin.”

“Elon and Zach will also maintain their respective positions as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer,” the filing concludes — just in case you were worried that Tesla was officially becoming one of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.

You can watch Reuters report on the new “Technoking of Tesla” below, and pay special attention to Musk’s dancing, which should make it clear that he’s definitely not the king of techno music:

While Musk seems to be reveling in his newfound status in the cryptocurrency world, the Tesla CEO is learning that there’s a price to his attention-seeking presence on social media. In February, Musk dipped Tesla shares by over eight percent after tweeting he felt the Bitcoin was a bit high. The drop in share price was enough to knock Musk from the top of Bloomberg’s Billionaire list where he now sits behind Jeff Bezo in second place. But judging by his new “Technoking” status, it doesn’t like Elon is going to stop being Elon anytime soon.

(Via The Verge, Reuters)

The Brooklyn Nets, at 26-13, are comfortably in position to land a top-3 seed in the Eastern Conference going into the playoffs, as they, the current top seeded Sixers, and the Bucks have separated themselves from the pack already. What makes Brooklyn’s run to this point all the more impressive is that they are doing so with a roster that is seemingly constantly in flux.

James Harden and Kyrie Irving are playing spectacular basketball next to one another and Joe Harris is putting forth an historically great shooting season, but they’ve still had to play more than half of their games this season without the man many would consider their absolute best player in Kevin Durant. Now, having Harden and Irving to keep the ship afloat in Durant’s absence, as he has twice had 7-day quarantines for contact tracing and more recently has missed time due to a hamstring strain, is a tremendous luxury, but this is a team still trying to build its chemistry and hasn’t been able to fully do so.

The wait for the full strength Nets will continue for a bit longer, as The Athletic’s Shams Charania reports Durant will sit another 1-2 weeks, as Brooklyn is understandably being cautious with the fickle nature of hamstring injuries. It’s smart to give hamstrings as much time as possible to fully heal, and the Nets are a team with title aspirations who won’t be afraid of having to go on the road for a series in the conference finals or semis. As such, putting their longterm goals ahead of pushing for a 1-seed (which, they’re only a game out of even with KD’s extended absence) makes sense.

At the same time, the regular season should be the time for the Nets to be able to tinker with rotations and allow Steve Nash to figure out how to handle rest in the minutes between the start and finish of the game when he wants his Big Three all on the floor. Brooklyn has some other pieces to work into the fold as well, with Blake Griffin still getting in game shape to make his debut and the expectation that they aren’t done with the buyout market just yet. The next month-plus will likely see a lot of different lineups pop up, as Durant eventually returns, Griffin works his way in, and potential other additions arrive on the roster. That sets up an interesting, possibly fun, challenge for Nash to keep things fresh in the playoff push at the end of the season, and the Nets will be nothing if not fascinating as they try to harness all their star power to be at their best for the postseason.

A little over three hours into Zack Snyder’s mammoth vision of what a Justice League movie should look like (a vision that was famously canceled, but now reborn), the team finally announces, “we have a plan.” Again, it took three hours for the Justice League to come up with a plan, which, in the end, amounts to nothing much more than “Let’s shoot the thing.”

When writing about a Zack Snyder movie, it always comes with the baggage that, yes, once these words hit the public, a good number of his fans will take this as an opportunity to yell at me. So, I offer this preface here: I am about as close to a Zack Snyder agnostic as there is. I like Watchmen and Man of Steel quite a bit. I very much dislike Sucker Punch and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Justice League is putrid, but we know now that Snyder can’t really be blamed for how that movie turned out, as Snyder was phased out and eventually replaced by Joss Whedon. What resulted was a confusing, ill-structured mess of a motion picture. Like I just said, I didn’t like Batman v Superman, but at least it was one person’s vision of what a Batman versus Superman movie should look like. And I’d take that any day over whatever Justice League was supposed to be.

And that pretty much sums up what we get in Zack Snyder’s Justice League: one person’s vision of what a Justice League movie should look like. Whether that vision is for you or not, well that is between you and your god. (If you are a fan of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, I imagine you’ll be pretty happy with Zack Snyder’s Justice League.) And it’s a far superior film than the version that came out in theaters in 2017 – but it would be kind of surprising if it wasn’t. That’s a pretty low bar.

Yes, Zack Snyder’s Justice League is just over four hours long, divided into individual chapters in case a person doesn’t want to watch it all in one sitting. And most of that padded time is used to show us the backstories of each of the characters, which kind of reveals the biggest problem with both of these versions: in that it came out way too early in this DC Universe that was being built. In Whedon’s version we knew almost nothing about these characters. In Snyder’s version we know more, and it certainly helps the story, but now it’s a four hour movie about searching for magic, world-destroying boxes.

But, yes, the character development helps immensely. Too often in the previous version I was left wondering why a character would do something or say something in the context of the story. It made no sense. While watching Snyder’s version, I had a lot of, “ohhh, I see, that makes sense now,” moments. But by the time we get to the third hour, it’s still a razor thin plot about trying to find three Mother Boxes so the world doesn’t end. So my general feeling during most of this Zack Snyder’s Justice League, was, yes, it’s now a coherent movie and is a better experience. But, also, why does a movie with a plot that’s as simple as “searching for magic boxes” have to be this long?

Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) is trying to put together a team of heroes – The Flash (Ezra Miller), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), Aquaman (Jason Mamoa), Cyborg (Ray Fisher) – to make up for the missing Superman (Henry Cavill) who died in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. (Bruce spends so much time assembling this team, and we see so many backstories, he doesn’t even wear his Batman costume until over two hours into this movie.) And this was my favorite aspect of Zack Snyder’s Justice League. Basically, we get a mini-movie for each character. By the time they all team up, we at least know a little bit about them. We learn Cyborg used to play football and his ability to hack computers now becomes a huge plot point. We get a whole scene of The Flash applying for a job and saving Iris West from a car accident. But, in the end, these setups become kind of frustrating because they just lead to an unmemorable CGI ending of a battle. (Again the “let’s shoot it” plan.)

This team is needed because an alien invader named Steppenwolf is looking for the three Mother Boxes and if he gets them, his boss, Darkseid (who wasn’t in the original film), will come to Earth and enslave all of its citizens. And, yes, Steppenwolf is among the characters who are fleshed out. Now he’s less “standard CGI villain” and more of a depressing dope who just wants to impress Darkseid. Steppenwolf has been discarded by Darkseid as a bumbling fool, but this is Steppenwolf’s big chance for redemption! In fact, we see Steppenwolf check in with Darkseid, or another henchman, DeSaad, in kind of a “Vader checking in with the Emperor in The Empire Strikes Back” kind of way, many, many times during this movie. Also, Steppenwolf looks much better. He literally looked like unfinished CGI in the Whedon version. Now he looks like “completed CGI.” This doesn’t change that Steppenwolf is still a pretty lousy villain. But now, at least, he has some motivations – and a couple of bosses giving him a hard time. Which is much better than the previous motivation that seemed nothing more than, “I’m mad.”

It seems likely now Joss Whedon’s main job was to “cut this movie down from four hours into two hours,” adding scenes here and there that pasted what was left together into something coherent. (Yeah, he failed at that.) Gone are things like the opening scene of Batman fighting Parademons and, later, the whole subplot about the Russian family. And, now, everything that’s left feels just more extended. It’s a pretty remarkable thing, because there were a lot of character motivations thrown on the cutting room floor that were just never bothered to be explained in any way, which resulted in a mess of a movie.

The legacy of Zack Snyder’s Justice League will most likely be that of an odd curiosity. And it will most likely wind up being the version of this movie that’s most accepted as the definitive version, kind of like how it’s pretty hard to track down the version of Blade Runner that has Harrison Ford’s narration. Personally, I could have lived my life peacefully without thinking about this movie ever again, but I don’t begrudge Snyder for wanting his version out there. Basically, “Hey, if you want to not like this movie, at least not like the one I wanted to make. Please judge me on my patented slow-motion shots set to sad music, not whatever that other movie had in it.” (And there is plenty of that.) And it is pretty remarkable he got a chance to do it. This really isn’t something that happens: a director who was replaced, coming back to reshape the movie into his once scorned vision. So that aspect I certainly find interesting.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League, inevitably, is not for me. It’s a vast improvement from the prior version – and, honestly, the fact there now has been more solo movies for these characters kind of retroactively helps this movie; like, we understand Aquaman’s deal now – but, in the end, it’s just a movie about trying to find magic boxes. It’s just a really long, more coherent version of that story. I certainly didn’t hate it like I hate the prior version – and, admittedly, I do like it more than Batman v Superman – but all the character motivation in the world still doesn’t help the foundation the whole thing is built on.

And I think Snyder himself might even know that, because there’s a 30-minute epilogue at the end of this movie that’s pretty interesting. Having some new, recently filmed footage in there, he at least knew he needed “something else.” Some weight. A scene giving us a glimpse into what the future of this story might have looked like, though it’s doubtful we’ll ever see it. It left me intrigued! But not enough to say I enjoyed watching all of the previous three and a half hours. Though, my mindset on this movie has changed from “a disaster” to “a competently made, interesting misfire.” And for people, like me, who aren’t totally on board with Snyder’s grand vision for these films, well maybe, in Snyder’s mind, that’s a win.

‘Zach Snyder’s Justice League’ begins streaming on March 18th. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Tyson Fury was one of the fighters of the year in 2020, along with Teofimo Lopez, for his work in dispatching Deontay Wilder by way of 7th round TKO last February. A trilogy fight, as they fought to a draw in their first battle, was scheduled for December of last year, but word emerged early in 2021 that after that had been pushed back, the trilogy fight was off the table.

As such, Fury, the WBC champion and lineal champion, will seek to unify all the heavyweight titles in a megafight with the other top heavyweight in the world, fellow Brit Anthony Joshua, as the two sides have agreed to a deal, as Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn told ESPN’s Mark Kriegel.

“One of the fascinations about this fight will be the build-up because they’re two totally different characters, two totally different personalities,” Hearn said. “The mind games will be on another level for this fight. Tyson is very good at that. Anthony is excited by that…He’s so pumped, so focused, he hasn’t stopped training since the [Kubrat] Pulev fight [in December]. He’s like a caged lion. The buildup is going to be epic.”

Joshua holds the WBO, IBF, WBA, and IBO heavyweight titles and the winner of this fight will unify all of the major belts for the first time since Lennox Lewis, as the Klitschko brothers refused to fight each other and each lorded over one of the belts for the better part of a decade. It will be a massive fight and the plan is to complete a site bid within a month, with the expectation that a site in the Middle East will win the bid at least for the first bout — although there are bids in from all over, per Hearn — as that was likewise the site of Joshua’s rematch with Andy Ruiz.

When Taylor Swift’s Folklore took home the Grammy for Album Of The Year last night, collaborator Aaron Dessner took a moment to offer some thank-you’s. He had more to say than he had time to on stage, though, so after the ceremony was over, he took to social media to share a sort of extended acceptance speech.

He began his written message, “It has been an incredible journey since Taylor first approached me to write with her. From the moment she wrote Cardigan last April 28th — she unlocked a creative chemistry between us distinct from anything I’d previously experienced, and it led to the creation of two albums in 6 months that are incredibly dear to me — folklore and evermore. Thank you to the Recording Academy for recognizing folklore tonight. Taylor, Jack [Antonoff] and I could not be prouder of the work we’ve done together.”

After thanking some folks involved with the album and other people in his personal and professional life, he thanked Swift and declared that she “restored [his] faith in music and the ways in which it can help [him] and others”:

“And most of all thank you to Taylor. I am constantly humbled by and grateful for our friendship and collaboration. It’s such a strange thought that this time last year, we hadn’t even begun our journey together, since you are now such a big part of my life. You have restored my faith in music and the ways in which it can help me and others. In a year of such uncertainty and fear, I’m eternally grateful for the music we made. You generously shared your songwriting genius with me and others on these records — and made everyone involved feel appreciated and confident in their work. I can’t say enough positive things about you as an artist and a person.”

Find Dessner’s full statement below.

“It has been an incredible journey since Taylor first approached me to write with her. From the moment she wrote Cardigan last April 28th — she unlocked a creative chemistry between us distinct from anything I’d previously experienced, and it led to the creation of two albums in 6 months that are incredibly dear to me — folklore and evermore. Thank you to the Recording Academy for recognizing folklore tonight. Taylor, Jack and I could not be prouder of the work we’ve done together.

Thank you to my family: my beautiful wife Stine for constantly lifting me up with her indomitable spirit and supporting me through all of this, and to my children Ingrid, Robin and Mimi who inspire me every day.

Thank you Jonathan Low, my amazingly talented engineer and mixer who I’ve been fortunate to have working alongside my projects for the past decade.

Thank you Bryce, my loving brother, for your invaluable contributions to folklore — I would never have been able to do any of this without everything I’ve learned from and with you and your constant support. It is no surprise to anyone that your arrangements elevate the album to what it is.

My dear friend Justin who always picks me up when I feel down and who has given me a confidence in my music that I sometimes lose — your writing, voice and playing are vital parts of both these albums. I cherish our friendship and every single opportunity we have to collaborate.

Thank you so much to Joe for your brilliant writing and collaboration on both folklore and evermore — and for your friendship and spirit which have been a huge part of this unforgettable time.

Thank you to my bandmates in the National who I learned how to write and make records together without compromise — and all the artists I’ve worked with for giving me the chance to grow and learn from you.

Thank you to all of the people who lent their talents to folklore, especially Ben Lanz, Bryan Devendorf, Clarice Jensen, Dave Nelson, James McAlister, Jason Treuting, Josh Kaufman, JT Bates, Kyle Resnick, Laura Sisk, Rob Moose, Thomas Bartlett, and Yuki Numata Resnick.

Thank you to my management, Straight & Narrow Brandon, Shaun, Grant and Wayne, for all the work behind the scenes.

And most of all thank you to Taylor. I am constantly humbled by and grateful for our friendship and collaboration. It’s such a strange thought that this time last year, we hadn’t even begun our journey together, since you are now such a big part of my life. You have restored my faith in music and the ways in which it can help me and others. In a year of such uncertainty and fear, I’m eternally grateful for the music we made. You generously shared your songwriting genius with me and others on these records — and made everyone involved feel appreciated and confident in their work. I can’t say enough positive things about you as an artist and a person.

Finally, to all the nominees and to those who did not receive nominations (many of my most favorite artists have never received nominations of any kind), I applaud you for continuing to put your art out into the world. It is a vulnerable moment when you share a song or record with someone for the first time, and I find motivation in the community of songwriters, performers, producers, engineers and designers who keep finding the courage to launch brilliant music into our lives. Keep going.”

Last Week Tonight did its usual thing with John Oliver whipping through topics with ease and landing joke after joke before gliding into the show’s main segment. This week, the transition happened with both glee and regret. At around the 9:00 mark, Oliver announced, “Our main story tonight concerns, I’m sorry to say, Tucker Carlson, the man who gives Tuckers an ever worse name than they already have.”

From there, everyone had to know that the rollercoaster ride would begin. After all, there’s no love lost between Tucker and Oliver with the latter going to town over the former’s Dr. Seuss outrage (over “cancel culture”), his Elmo tantrum (over Black Lives Matter), and his preposterous defense of Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse. All of this builds up to the most “dangerous” way that Tucker manages to be (in Oliver’s words) a “terrible person,” which would be Tucker’s status as a white supremacist, despite pretending not to know what a white supremacist is:

“Of all the things that Tucker is, a conspiracy theorist, a misogynist, an Islamophobe, a troll, one of the most dangerous is that he is one of the most prominent vessel in America for white supremacist talking points. And I already know what Tucker will say about this because whenever this topic comes up, he has the exact same reaction: ‘What does that even. mean?’”

Oliver’s also got a few new nicknames here, too, including the following:

— “Oh f*ck off, Tucker, you relentlessly indignant picket fence.”

— “What are you talking about, you performatively outraged wedge salad? He’s packed a lot in there, from transphobia, to weirdly extolling the masculinity of China’s navy, to his completely misplaced outrage at Joe Biden over those flight suits.”

The latter nickname, of course, refers to Tucker’s recent takedown of female soldiers angered top military officials after he declared, “Pregnant women are going to fight our wars. It’s a mockery of the U.S. military.” This led to a deluge of backlash from conservative and liberal circles alike, including names as varied as Joe Walsh (who tweeted, “Every woman in the military I’ve ever met could absolutely kick Tucker Carlson’s ass”) and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (who actually told Tucker to f*ck off before reheating her criticism of how he questioned her patriotism).

With so many people opposed to Tucker Carlson’s vitriol, though, is anyone on his side? A lot of people, actually. Oliver points out that Tucker scores over 3 million viewers each evening in various age groups, and there have been rumors that he’s mulling over a 2024 presidential run. He’s also won the praises of countless well-known white supremacists, including David Duke, and that’s why Tucker Carlson can’t be ignored — because of his countless on-air sentiments like this: “Maybe I don’t want to live in a country that looks nothing like the one I grew up in. Is that bigoted?” Yes, he’s said that and much more, which leads Oliver to this point:

“The point is, when you know how Tucker speaks when he speaks freely, the filter through which he processes the world for his audience becomes painfully apparent. Because he’s smart enough to not openly say into a camera that certain races are more deserving of scorn or less worthy of respect. He will just heavily imply that depending on who he’s talking about.”

As Oliver puts things, Tucker “couldn’t be more ethnically white than if he jizzed mayonnaise.” He breaks down Tucker’s misogynistic and perverted remarks to Bubba the Love Sponge and Tucker’s bow-tie adorned, racially-charged statements during the O.J. murder trial days when he wore a bow tie and made racially-charged statements, and so on. Then there’s his disrespect for Britney Spears, and his utmost respect for Pat Robertson, along with his stances on immigration and his wide-eyed wonder at whether affirmative action is actually racist. Not to mention his perspective that Democrats hate and want to dismantle America and his empathy for insurrectionists.

And yep, these sentiments reach millions of Fox News viewers every weekday night, so it’s no wonder that Oliver is unhesitatingly using the word “dangerous” to describe Tucker Carlson. Watch the full Last Week Tonight clip above.

Prior to today, Glenn Close had been nominated for seven Oscars — three times for Best Supporting Actress and four times for Best Actress; no times for playing the original live-action Cruella — with zero wins. That made her one nomination away from tying an ignominious record: the most Oscar nominations with no wins, set by Peter O’Toole.

Well, congratulations to Close, because she’s in the books now after getting her eighth nomination this morning for Hillbilly Elegy, a bad (terminator) movie.

Close will compete against Maria Bakalova (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm), Olivia Colman (The Father), Amanda Seyfried (Mank), and Yuh-jung Youn (Minari) for Best Supporting Actress, mere days after being nominated in the same category at a less-prestigious awards show, the Razzies. With this rare feat, the actress tied another unwanted record:

Amy Irving (Yentl) and James Coco (Only When I Laugh) were previously nominated for both Oscars and Razzies for the same performance in 1984 and 1982… Other actors have received nominations for Oscars and Razzies in the same year, but for different performances, including Melissa McCarthy (Can You Ever Forgive Me? and The Happytime Murders), Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side and All About Steve), and Jack Nicholson (A Few Good Men and both Hoffa and Man Trouble).

Pete Davidson must be feeling very conflicted.

(Via EW)

From the fraught first year that the Grammys acknowledged hip-hop, it was clear that the then-emerging genre and the old-Hollywood music business establishment that puts the show on each year would never see eye-to-eye. Hip-hop is a youth movement; the average age of the Recording Academy was well into middle age until very, very (seriously, like 2018) recently. Hip-hop comes from the experiences of mainly underserved Black, Latin, and Asian creators; the Grammys — again, until recently — have always been very, very white.

And while the Grammys have made a concerted effort to address its shortcomings regarding its treatment of rap and hip-hop, the genre itself has undergone massive changes since The Fresh Prince first led a hip-hop boycott of the 1989 ceremony to protest the Grammys not televising the new Best Rap Performance award. For one thing, The Fresh Prince is now better known for his extensive filmography and the extreme dad energy of his Instagram and TikTok posts than he is for his mic skills.

Meanwhile, the very attributes a rap performer must display to be taken seriously have changed from night to day. Rather than reeling off rapid-fire punchlines about how “Fresh” you are, you’re more likely to switch breezily from chattering double-time cadences to cool crooning. The synthesizers and programmed drums of the early years have given way to cavernous 808s thundering away over warped samples from classical music and drumless soul loops spinning away behind intricate, ultra-violent drug tales.

So, it’d be difficult for the Grammys to “get it right” even under the best circumstances. Yet somehow, incredibly, that’s exactly what the show managed to do this year — even if no one will ever be truly satisfied with the results. The field, which included projects from California newcomer D Smoke, Midwestern coke rap kingpin Freddie Gibbs, New Orleans mystic Jay Electronica, New York veteran Nas, and Motor City rhyme mechanic Royce Da 5’9, represented one of the most balanced group’s in recent memory, pulling from multiple regions, generations, and sounds, with one thing in common: A commitment to the original tenets of “dope rhymes over dope beats.”

And while any rap fan could find plenty to complain about — once again, there was a dearth of women nominated, despite the sharp uptick in overall representation over the past several years, and no artist nominated was under 30 — there’s going to be a breaking point between having legitimate concerns and just plain moving the goalposts. In prior years, the complaint went, “The Grammys are too commercial,” only selecting projects from artists with sales numbers and widespread press, letting the importance streams overtake the value of artistic vision.

While this is a position that’s already hard enough to defend, considering the subjective nature of artistic vision in the first place, the fact remains that the Academy took long strides in addressing those concerns this year. Acknowledging longtime underground favorites like Freddie and Royce, paramount musicianship from D Smoke, and the bulletproof legacy of someone like Nas, the Grammys sent a clear message: That they heard those prior years’ complaints and took them seriously.

So, of course, it’s only natural that rap fans find something else to take issue with — namely, Nas’ win over Freddie. While both albums were collaborative efforts between two of rap’s top technicians and a pair of well-established producers in Alchemist and Hit-Boy, the fact remains that Nas is the more recognizable artist between the two among Grammy voters. He’s been a perennial contender for Best Rap Album, and while playing “what if” is always dicey, it’s almost certain that a win for Freddie over Nas would have drawn just as many vocal protests after the Queensbridge icon was once again “snubbed,” adding to his double-digit list of losses.

The fact someone like Freddie Gibbs could even receive a nod is a victory in itself — especially when you consider how many other artists were considered snubs this year. Lil Baby had one of the most-streamed albums of 2020, a No. 1 single in “The Bigger Picture,” and many rap fans’ hopes riding on him to legitimize the trap rap movement in the mainstream purview. Despite multiple female artists releasing worthy projects in 2020 or late 2019, none were nominated. No year’s field could ever be perfect, but the Gibbs nomination proves the Grammys are trying.

It also shows that maybe just adding more Black, female, or “young” voters isn’t quite enough. There’s no guarantee that these measures will ensure significant variance between voters’ tastes — after all, Grammy voters also tend to run more “intellectual” and “refined,” which helps explain why rough-edged rappers like Lil Baby might fly under their radars. That said, the show’s producers picked up the slack elsewhere; newcomers like DaBaby, Lil Baby, Megan Thee Stallion, and Roddy Ricch not only appeared on the show — one of the biggest platforms to help them launch their future bids for mainstream recognition — but Megan also won for other categories, while Chika and Doja Cat were mentioned among the Best New Artists of 2021.

Those moments count too. After all, Nas’ win was as much a result of his stature among Academy voters as it was a consolation for all the other golden gramophones he never got to display on his mantel. Cardi B pointed out as much before the show; just giving these under-the-radar artists the look helps them further their careers, which is the real goal. The Grammys aren’t the be-all, end-all. Like Nipsey Hussle — another Best Rap Album “snub” who won a different award posthumously the next year — said, “It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

Perhaps that’s the view rap fans should take with the Grammys’ halting progress toward a more perfect relationship with hip-hop. While rap is too broad and diverse a genre to ever be able to honor every artist in every nook and cranny of rap’s various versions, there’s nothing wrong with giving them credit where it’s due, even as we ask them to consider angles they haven’t yet. That’s what they’re trying to do — heck, it’s what we should all aspire to do — and when even getting “snubbed” helps artists so much, that’s an effort that should be appreciated.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

From the fraught first year that the Grammys acknowledged hip-hop, it was clear that the then-emerging genre and the old-Hollywood music business establishment that puts the show on each year would never see eye-to-eye. Hip-hop is a youth movement; the average age of the Recording Academy was well into middle age until very, very (seriously, like 2018) recently. Hip-hop comes from the experiences of mainly underserved Black, Latin, and Asian creators; the Grammys — again, until recently — have always been very, very white.

And while the Grammys have made a concerted effort to address its shortcomings regarding its treatment of rap and hip-hop, the genre itself has undergone massive changes since The Fresh Prince first led a hip-hop boycott of the 1989 ceremony to protest the Grammys not televising the new Best Rap Performance award. For one thing, The Fresh Prince is now better known for his extensive filmography and the extreme dad energy of his Instagram and TikTok posts than he is for his mic skills.

Meanwhile, the very attributes a rap performer must display to be taken seriously have changed from night to day. Rather than reeling off rapid-fire punchlines about how “Fresh” you are, you’re more likely to switch breezily from chattering double-time cadences to cool crooning. The synthesizers and programmed drums of the early years have given way to cavernous 808s thundering away over warped samples from classical music and drumless soul loops spinning away behind intricate, ultra-violent drug tales.

So, it’d be difficult for the Grammys to “get it right” even under the best circumstances. Yet somehow, incredibly, that’s exactly what the show managed to do this year — even if no one will ever be truly satisfied with the results. The field, which included projects from California newcomer D Smoke, Midwestern coke rap kingpin Freddie Gibbs, New Orleans mystic Jay Electronica, New York veteran Nas, and Motor City rhyme mechanic Royce Da 5’9, represented one of the most balanced group’s in recent memory, pulling from multiple regions, generations, and sounds, with one thing in common: A commitment to the original tenets of “dope rhymes over dope beats.”

And while any rap fan could find plenty to complain about — once again, there was a dearth of women nominated, despite the sharp uptick in overall representation over the past several years, and no artist nominated was under 30 — there’s going to be a breaking point between having legitimate concerns and just plain moving the goalposts. In prior years, the complaint went, “The Grammys are too commercial,” only selecting projects from artists with sales numbers and widespread press, letting the importance streams overtake the value of artistic vision.

While this is a position that’s already hard enough to defend, considering the subjective nature of artistic vision in the first place, the fact remains that the Academy took long strides in addressing those concerns this year. Acknowledging longtime underground favorites like Freddie and Royce, paramount musicianship from D Smoke, and the bulletproof legacy of someone like Nas, the Grammys sent a clear message: That they heard those prior years’ complaints and took them seriously.

So, of course, it’s only natural that rap fans find something else to take issue with — namely, Nas’ win over Freddie. While both albums were collaborative efforts between two of rap’s top technicians and a pair of well-established producers in Alchemist and Hit-Boy, the fact remains that Nas is the more recognizable artist between the two among Grammy voters. He’s been a perennial contender for Best Rap Album, and while playing “what if” is always dicey, it’s almost certain that a win for Freddie over Nas would have drawn just as many vocal protests after the Queensbridge icon was once again “snubbed,” adding to his double-digit list of losses.

The fact someone like Freddie Gibbs could even receive a nod is a victory in itself — especially when you consider how many other artists were considered snubs this year. Lil Baby had one of the most-streamed albums of 2020, a No. 1 single in “The Bigger Picture,” and many rap fans’ hopes riding on him to legitimize the trap rap movement in the mainstream purview. Despite multiple female artists releasing worthy projects in 2020 or late 2019, none were nominated. No year’s field could ever be perfect, but the Gibbs nomination proves the Grammys are trying.

It also shows that maybe just adding more Black, female, or “young” voters isn’t quite enough. There’s no guarantee that these measures will ensure significant variance between voters’ tastes — after all, Grammy voters also tend to run more “intellectual” and “refined,” which helps explain why rough-edged rappers like Lil Baby might fly under their radars. That said, the show’s producers picked up the slack elsewhere; newcomers like DaBaby, Lil Baby, Megan Thee Stallion, and Roddy Ricch not only appeared on the show — one of the biggest platforms to help them launch their future bids for mainstream recognition — but Megan also won for other categories, while Chika and Doja Cat were mentioned among the Best New Artists of 2021.

Those moments count too. After all, Nas’ win was as much a result of his stature among Academy voters as it was a consolation for all the other golden gramophones he never got to display on his mantel. Cardi B pointed out as much before the show; just giving these under-the-radar artists the look helps them further their careers, which is the real goal. The Grammys aren’t the be-all, end-all. Like Nipsey Hussle — another Best Rap Album “snub” who won a different award posthumously the next year — said, “It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

Perhaps that’s the view rap fans should take with the Grammys’ halting progress toward a more perfect relationship with hip-hop. While rap is too broad and diverse a genre to ever be able to honor every artist in every nook and cranny of rap’s various versions, there’s nothing wrong with giving them credit where it’s due, even as we ask them to consider angles they haven’t yet. That’s what they’re trying to do — heck, it’s what we should all aspire to do — and when even getting “snubbed” helps artists so much, that’s an effort that should be appreciated.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.