With the 64th annual Grammy Awards right around the corner — set to take place April 3 at the famous MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas — the Recording Academy has made a bold decision against one of its marquee nominees.
For his August 2021 album Donda, Kanye West is nominated in four different categories for this year’s event, including Album of the Year, Best Rap Album, Best Rap Song for “Jail” (Feat. Jay-Z) and Best Melodic Rap Performance for “Hurricane” (Feat. The Weeknd and Lil Baby).
Each year, the Grammy’s provide a litany of music’s hottest artists to perform at the event. For the 2021 Grammys, 22 artists took the stage to perform for the attendees, including Roddy Ricch, Post Malone, Lil Baby, Doja Cat, Billie Eilish and more.
On March 15, the Recording Academy announced the first round of performers for this year’s ceremony, as they include Eilish once more, Olivia Rodrigo, Lil Nas X and Jack Harlow, Brothers Osborne, BTS and Brandi Carlile — all of whom are nominated for Grammys this year.
A few days after the initial announcement, The Game revealed that Ye would not be hitting the stage next Sunday night, allegedly due to his recent Instagram rants and posts regarding his ex-wife Kim Kardashian, as well as shots at D.L. Hughley and Grammys host Trevor Noah. Ye was suspended from Instagram for 24 hours due to this and has since been stricken from the performance list on music’s biggest night.
“The Grammys have at the last minute decided to pull @kanyewest from performing on the show as if we didn’t know it was coming. Could be because @trevornoah is hosting and there was a conversation held amongst his team & the Academy that led to the decision or because Ye’s account was suspended just days ago for reasons unknown especially in a world where all the negativities of the world can be found on the same app with no repercussions or suspensions.”
The Game via Instagram Story
However, Trevor Noah had mentioned how much he respected Ye in the comments of the post Kanye made dissing him — also voicing his support for keeping West on as a performer at the event in a tweet from March 20.
On the other hand, Ye’s ex-girlfriend Julia Fox explained that Kanye is not a true threat for violence amid his recent social media outbursts, but it might be difficult to condemn the Recording Academy too much for this decision, likely wanting to avoid any controversy on the day of the show.
While Ye still has a pretty good shot of securing an award for his awe-inspiring project, it’s still up in the air whether or not he’ll be performing songs from the album at The Grammys — seemingly warming up for his headlining slot at Coachella a few weeks following.
