Anybody else pissed at the Grammys this year? Zayn Malik joined the Weeknd and Halsey in calling out the Recording Academy ahead of this weekend’s award ceremony. “Fuck the Grammys and everyone associated,” he tweeted Tuesday night. “Unless you shake hands and send gifts, there’s no nomination considerations. Next year I’ll send you a basket of confectionary.” His fans couldn’t agree more — their favorite band, One Direction, doesn’t have a single Grammy nomination. Meanwhile, some couldn’t help but point out that Zayn’s 2021 album Nobody Is Listening isn’t eligible for this year’s awards. Its first single came out on September 25, 2020, nearly a month after the cutoff. Quickly spun into a narrative about him being bitter, Zayn returned to Twitter that evening to clarify. “My tweet was not personal or about eligibility but was about the need for inclusion and the lack of transparency of the nomination process and the space that creates and allows favoritism, racism, and netwokring [sic] politics to influence the voting process,” he spilled.
Zayn joined the chorus of artists asking for diversity and transparency from the Recording Academy just days after this year’s lineup of performers, including his ex-bandmate, Harry Styles, were announced. Bad Bunny, Black Pumas, Cardi B, BTS, Brandi Carlile, DaBaby, Doja Cat, Billie Eilish, Mickey Guyton, Haim, Brittany Howard, Miranda Lambert, Lil Baby, Dua Lipa, Chris Martin, John Mayer, Megan Thee Stallion, Maren Morris, Post Malone, Roddy Ricch, and his “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever” collaborator Taylor Swift. Yeah … we would have FOMO, too.
Update, March 14 at 6:30 p.m.: On the night of the Grammys, Zayn continued pressure on the Recording Academy, saying the institution is “moving in inches and we need to move in miles.” He, like the Weeknd, specifically called out the Grammys’ secret committees, which whittle down the submissions to a list of seven or eight nominees.
