Kendrick Lamar is back after a long break. He finally gave a release date for his upcoming new studio album Mr. Morale and the big steppers.” It will be released on May 13th. It’ll likely top the charts and garner countless accolades, assuming it’s on par with his previous work, but will it earn him what he missed: a Grammy for album of the year?
At this point, who knows if he’s even interested in the Grammys. In the five years since his last studio album, Damn, artists have liked drake and the weekend have criticized and/or boycotted the awards due to Sketchy voting practices and The Recording Academy’s prejudice against black artists, particularly in hip-hop. But it’s the most recognized award voted on by industry peers nonetheless, and Lamar’s continued snubs in the general categories of all genres has been symbolic of the industry’s dogged resistance to taking hip-hop as seriously as the (usually white) singer-songwriters Songwriters they tend to orient themselves. Lamar even won a damn Pulitzer Prize for “Damn,” but couldn’t win a Grammy outside of rap.
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To date, Lamar has been nominated five times for Album of the Year: three for his studio albums (Good Kid, MAAD City, To Pimp a Butterfly, and Damn), once for Featured Artist (on Beyonce‘s “Lemonade”), and once as a lead contributor on the “Black Panther” soundtrack. “Good Kid” lost to daft punk‘s “Random Access Memories”. “Butterfly” lost to Taylor Swiftis “1989”. “Lemonade” lost on Adeleis “25”. “Damn” lost Bruno Mars“24K Magic”. And “Black Panther” lost against it Kacey Musgraves‘s “Golden Hour”.
As you might have guessed from this list, in this year’s Grammy race he would face two of the artists who have previously bested him: Adele for her latest album, 30, and Mars for his collaboration, An Evening with Silk Sonic Anderson.Paak. Neither Adele nor Mars have lost a single Grammy of their last 13 nominations. And both still have that old-school flavor that the Grammys prefer. If “Mr. Morale” isn’t enough, perhaps Lamar’s next album should be a collection of 1950s blues covers.
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