“…This isn’t the first time the #Grammy’s has had a show all but excluding young black America and black artists in general, although we set the worlds musical trends. Why NOT televise the lifetime achievement awards of the Isley Brothers? SURELY they deserved to be on televised stage LAST NIGHT! While other artists were on stage TWICE?” -India Arie speaking on the 2014 Grammy Award’s televised show via. twitter (@IndiaArie)
It wasn’t until 1989 when Hip-Hop won it’s first Grammy. DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince (Will Smith) won Best Rap Performance for Parent’s Just Don’t Understand. The the other nominee’s included J.J. Fad “Supersonic”, Kool Moe Dee “Wild Wild West”, LL Cool J “Going Back to Cali”, Salt-N-Pepa “Push-It”. Unfortunately the winners DJ Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince were not in attendance to accept their award along with a host of other rap artists, including Salt-N-Pepa, Kid N’ Play, and Russell Simmons. 1989 was the first year that rap and metal music was included in the Grammy’s. It’s too bad that the academy chose to televise the metal award and not rap. Much of the hip-hop community was not accepting of this judgement and did not attend the 31st Grammy Award show in a public boycott against the Grammy academy. The following year DJ Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince performed on the live televised award show, and the academy had began to include the rap award on the televised presentation of the Grammy awards.