The Grammys might be facing an #OscarsSoWhite-style controversy after singer Frank Ocean went off on the awards show for giving the 2016 Album of the Year to Taylor Swift instead of Kendrick Lamar.
Thanks in part to that move, Ocean chose not to submit his highly anticipated 2016 album Blonde for Grammy consideration. “Winning a TV award doesn’t christen me successful,” he wrote in a Tumblr post on Saturday. “It took me some time to learn that.”
Ocean’s spirited post comes in response to producer Ken Ehrlich and writer David Wild knocking his 2013 performance on the show. They appeared on Rolling Stone's Music Now podcast Friday and discussed the troubled moment. “Frank had a very definite idea of exactly what he wanted to do and how he wanted to do it,” Wild said, according to Rolling Stone. “Ken said, ‘That’s not great TV.’” During the broadcast, Ocean sang “Forrest Gump” from his then-nominated album Orange. It marked a quieter moment onstage compared to the show’s standout performances by from Miguel, Justin Timberlake, and Rihanna with Sting and Bruno Mars in a Bob Marley tribute.
Ocean sarcastically thanked the pair for bringing up the failure and then fired back about Swift winning Album of the Year. “I’ve actually been tuning into CBS around this time of year for a while to see who gets the top honour and you know what’s really not ‘great TV’ guys? 1989 getting album of the year over To Pimp a Butterfly,” he wrote. “Hands down one of the most ‘faulty TV moments I’ve seen. Believe the people. Believe the ones who’d rather watch select performances from your program on YouTube the day after because your show puts them to sleep.”
His take on the Grammys represents a growing number of artists who don’t appear to view the honour in quite the same way. Drake and Kanye West won’t be appearing at the ceremony this year, even though both are nominated in several categories.