Drake and the Weeknd Withdraw their Music from Grammy Awards

Hip-Hop artists Drake and the Weeknd have both opted out of the upcoming Grammy awards in 2023.

According to Vibe, the pair have withdrawn all their music from consideration by the Recording Academy for the prestigious music awards.

The Toronto0based stars, who have often collaborated on tracks, each have albums and songs that may well be awarded otherwise.

Drake topped the music charts with his album ‘Honestly, Nevermind,’ while the Weeknd’s ‘Dawn FM,’ will also be out of contention.

This year will be the second year running that the artists have boycotted the awards.

They are not the only black artists to snub the show, with Bruno Mars and Anderson Paaak, known as Silk Sonic, announcing on Sunday that they will not submit their music for consideration of the Grammys.

Mars told Rolling Stone that “Silk Sonic would like to gracefully, humbly and most importantly, sexually, bow out of submitting our album this year, we hope we can celebrate with everyone on a great year of music and partake in the party.”

Female rapper Nicki Minaj voiced her discontent that her single, ‘Super Freaky Girl,’ was not submitted in any of the rap categories for the upcoming awards. She has not made her music ineligible as of yet though.

Drake in particular has a history of bad blood with the show.

In 2017 he voiced his frustration with the awards after his massive hit ‘Hotline Bling,’ was nominated for several rap and hip-hop honours but was no submitted into categories such as Song of the Year and Record of the Year.

“Even though Hotline Bling is not a rap song, the only category they can manage to fit me in is a rap category,” Drake said in 2017.

“Maybe because I’ve rapped in the past or because I’m Black, I can’t figure out why. I won two awards but I don’t even want them, because it just feels weird for some reason,” he added in frustration.

This is not the first time that African-American and other black artists have let their disappointment with the Grammy awards known, in fact there is a history of it dating back some time.

Famous acts such as Public Enemy, Salt’N’Pepa, Ice T, and others boycotted the show in the 1980s while Jay-Z did the same in the late 1990s.

Groups have often cited that there is a discrimination within the awarding of Grammys against people of colour and other minority groups.