Not An Expert

I was watching the American Music Awards with my sister. The category was Favorite Male Vocalist Soul/R&B, the nominees were Michael Jackson, Bobby Brown and George Michael. George Michael won now granted this was his first solo joint it was hot but he was NOT R&B. My reaction and I'll never forget it, "a white boy who ain't even from here  won best R&B male. My mind was made up I was THROUGH with music award shows.  But this was a double whammy year.  The biggest whammy of all came from the Grammy Awards. 1989 was the first year that Hip-Hop was category at the Grammys, the category was a mash-up called Best Rap Performance. The nominees were all over the place, JJ Fad, LL Cool J, Salt-N-Pepa, Kool Moe Dee and DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh.  Hip Hop had ARRIVED or so we thought, the revolution would NOT be televised. The award was not televised and Public Enemy, Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince and more boycotted the Grammy's. I joined them. The music was too important, it was moving a nation of young folk, urban folk, black folk and white folk. I was appalled and I still am.

Seems not much has changed since then.  It's 2010 and as I watched the tweets roll by I didn't see ANYTHING about the hip-hop categories being televised. I then lucked up and saw one, best Rap/Sung collaboration (who comes up with these things?) Jay-Z won it and he was there to accept it, but Kanye wasn't.  The story as far as I'm concerned remains the same. The folks you want to win usually don't, people who have zero skills usually do and the categories that the fan really cares about are not televised.  That's the surface stuff. The beneath the surface stuff is that OUR music, music created by US, originated by US STILL after all these years and now gazillions of units sold and gazillions of $$ into the majors pockets and we still can't get air time.  

That's why I don't watch. I can take your word for what happened or read about it on the web later.