Why Macklemore has received more Grammy nominations than Biggie, 2 Pac, and Wu-Tang combined

Macklemore is not a well-known rapper, and I’m sure even he would agree with me on this.

He has only a few albums to his credit and isn’t even a particularly productive rapper. Macklemore has won four Grammys despite this.

He won Best New Artist, Best Rap Song for Thrift Shop, Best Rap Performance, and Best Rap Album for The Heist in 2014, all of which were contentious victories.

It was such a strange outcome that he publicly apologized for it by sharing a text message he had made to Kendrick Lamar informing Lamar that he had been wrongly denied the Best Rap Album award.

I wished you had triumphed, Macklemore penned.

“You ought to have. That I robbed you is strange and awful.”

To put things in perspective, Tupac Shakur, the Notorious B.I.G., A Tribe Called Quest, DMX, Foxy Brown, and the Wu-Tang Clan combined don’t have as many Grammys as Macklemore does. Others have none. The only Grammy won by Method Man wasn’t for a song he recorded with the group.

The Grammys have made mistakes in the past, and this is only one of the reasons why the hip-hop community does not respect them.

Hip hop is perhaps the most popular musical style in the globe and in the United States. Rapper from Puerto Rico Bad Bunny was the most streamed musician internationally in 2022, according to the music streaming behemoth Spotify. Hip hop, despite its enormous influence, falls short when it comes to major Grammy prizes like Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Record of the Year.

This year, hip-hop turns 50, and the 65th Grammy Awards recognized this milestone. There were too many rap pioneers and legends on stage to list them all, but here is a sample: Grandmaster Flash, RUN-DMC, De La Soul (one win), Busta Rhymes, Rakim, Salt-N-Pepa, Queen Latifah, Public Enemy, Missy Elliott (four wins), LL Cool J (two wins), and Questlove (six wins) all participated in the competition as producers and musical directors.

The artist with the most Grammy awards on this list is Questlove, who has six, followed by Missy Elliott, who has four well-deserved awards. However, the Grammys aren’t always accurate. The outliers include Eminem (15 victories), Jay-Z (24 wins), and Kanye West (24 wins). Kendrick Lamar has received 17 Grammy Awards, demonstrating the Grammys’ improvement in recognizing talent. However, Grammy voters have a reputation for making some strange decisions.

The first Dr. Dre global impact award was given to the seven-time Grammy winner this year. But why are the majority of these victories for Eminem-related projects? Could it be that when talent is packaged to resemble them, Grammy voters are more likely to recognize it? And what’s with selecting novelty acts at random and awarding them?

Salt-N- At the 37th Grammy Awards, Pepa won a single Grammy for None of your Business’ Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. Random. For Push It, Whatta Man, or Let’s Talk About Sex, they lost. Lil’ Kim’s album by the same name, Hard Core, could also be used to characterize the performer as a whole. However, Lady Marmalade won her the Grammy for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. Random.

Young MC winning for Bust a Move in 1990 would be novel. He faced Public Enemy in “Fight the Power.” Unbelievably, M.C. Hammer has won three Grammys. Snoop Dogg possesses none.

Will Smith and D.J. Jazzy in 1989 Jeff’s song Parents Just Don’t Understand was the first rap Grammy winner. Evidently, the Grammys were unaware of how peculiar that was.

Nas, whose 1994 album Illmatic became a classic, didn’t win his first and only Grammy until 2021 for King’s Disease. Lil Nas X really had twice as many Grammys and won one before Nas.

Drake, the most streamed artist in Spotify history, earned five Grammy Awards, including one in 2023 as a featured artist and composer. By mid-October 2022, Drake had amassed 50 billion streams on the platform. However, he withdrew from the 65th Grammy Awards and didn’t submit his new album or any songs from it. He hasn’t stated why, though.

I’m not going to give him a reason. But given how frequently the Grammys have been incorrect, perhaps they don’t matter all that much after all.