By: Cameron Ulmer (’20), Staff Writer
January (the longest three year month to ever occur on God’s green Earth) brought snow, rain and a heat wave in the form of multiple jaw-dropping performances at the 60th annual Grammy Awards show.
And when I say heat, I really do mean heat since King Kendrick Lamar set fire to the stage within the first 30 seconds of the show beginning by performing his song “XXX” from his album DAMN. If you know the song, and if you know Lamar, then you know how powerful that moment was. Lamar demonstrated his lyrical and creative genius with a well delivered slap to the face of White America’s love for American patriotism that left no one questioning his “Best Rap Album” award. What we were questioning was how K-Dot did not receive any other awards.
Other performers that left an impression on the stage were of course the breathtaking SZA who stole the red carpet and the stage all while being cheated out of 5 Grammy Awards including the “Best New Artist” Award. Black Twitter was ready to take knees when Alessia Cara took home the Best New Artist Grammy instead SZA. If you missed the giant twitter debate because of this upset, do not worry. It was decided that although Cara has the range and her songs are indeed bops, SZA still should have won. As the great Issa Rae would say, we are “rooting for everybody black.”
Childish Gambino took the stage along with JD McCrary who plays young Simba from the new Lion King movie that is coming out in 2019. Can we talk about a chilling performance? They performed “Terrified” which was on Gambino’s latest album Awaken My Love. Gambino took home one Grammy out of five nominations and a whole lot of respect for being one of the most talented celebrities on the scene right now. If you disagree you can moonwalk your way out of here the same way Bruno Mars moonwalked his way off the stage with a total of six Grammys in his hands.
Bruno Mars swept the Grammys clean and Cardi B helped keep the winning energy up with their energizing and nostalgic performance of “Finesse”. It is not surprising that they performed that particular song. It set the tone to how Mars finessed the Song of the `Year Grammy and Record of the Year Grammy from “Despacito” which was a global bop.
But to give credit where credit is due, Baby Daddy Bruno really did the dang thing. He is an amazing performer and his songs will leave you hype as hell in the middle of Lenoir dancing with three CDS workers and two white students that you don’t know. He did deserve to win.
Let’s just hope that the 61st Annual Grammys Award Show continues to bring diversity into the mix because as always, I’M ROOTING FOR EVERYONE BLACK (and Bruno).
