Drake is no longer up for any awards at the 2022 Grammys. According to Variety, the 6 God has withdrawn his nominations for music’s biggest night. His Certified Lover Boy received a nod for Best Rap Album, and his single “Way 2 Sexy” featuring What A Time to Be Alive collaborator Future was in the running for Best Rap Performance. Reasons for the decision have not been disclosed.
Last year, the Toronto emcee was one of many artists to stand up for The Weeknd, who was excluded from the list of 2021 Grammy nominees despite the record-breaking success of his album After Hours and its single “Blinding Lights.” In a lengthy Instagram post, he addressed the years of snubs and suggested the development of another award show that would properly recognize deserving artists of the culture.
“I think we should stop allowing ourselves to be shocked every year by the disconnect between impactful music and these awards and just accept that what once was the highest form of recognition may no longer matter to the artists [who] exist now and the ones [who] come after,” he wrote at the time. “It’s like a relative you keep expecting to fix up, but they just can’t change their ways.”
“The other day, I said [The Weeknd] was a lock for either album or song of the year, along with countless other reasonable assumptions, and it just never goes that way,” he continued. “This is a great time for somebody to start something new that we can build up over time and pass on to the generations to come.”
Drake also shaded the Grammys while accepting the award for Best Rap Song in 2019.
“All my peers that make music from their heart that do things pure and tell the truth, I wanna let you know we’re playing in an opinion-based sport not a factual-based sport. So it’s not the NBA where at the end of the year you’re holding a trophy because you made the right decisions or won the games..,” he told his peers. “If there’s people who have regular jobs who are coming out in the rain, in the snow, spending their hard-earned money to buy tickets to come to your shows, you don’t need this right here. I promise you, you already won.”