The Weeknd is officially boycotting the Grammys
The Weeknd might have been turned down by the Grammys this year, but let the record show he broke up with them first!
On Thursday, the Canadian pop star behind the history-making hit "Blinding Lights" said that he will "no longer allow my label to submit my music to the Grammys," accusing the institution's "secret committees" of shutting him out of a nomination this year.
Though the Grammys are voted on by music professionals, an anonymous ("secret") committee is able to alter the final nominations as they see fit. The committee exists, supposedly, to help adjust for awareness bias (when artists with greater name recognition are favored over lesser-known emerging artists), although "the lack of transparency makes artists suspicious about the process," Vulture reports.
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Case in point: "If [the Weeknd's] peers didn't vote for him, that's a shame — if that's the truth," Chris Anokute, a longtime music executive, told The New York Times. "We don't really believe that's the truth; there's just no way. But we really don't know."
