With Grammy nominations arriving today, a huge portion of the discussion is going to dedicated to which artists deserved their nominations and which were snubbed, especially within a huge genre like rap, which really only gets a blanket designation with very little nuance in how it’s presented among the five nominees. Well, up-and-coming Brooklyn rapper Joey Badass has an unconventional solution for awards season confusion: Nominate a rap board to decide which albums belong in which subgenres of rap.
In a video released by Montreality, Joey discusses the need for better categorization within the genre of rap. Likening it to the various subgenres of rock like heavy metal, soft rock, and punk, he says hip-hop would do well to select a group of experts who can help differentiate so-called mumble rap from conscious rap and both from trap.
“What we need to do as a genre,” he elaborates, “We need to appoint who the officials are.” Then, he says, “What they need to do is appropriately label the subgenres. Once we label the subgenres we are able to restore the balance in the hip-hop game. Therefore, nobody is getting left out. Nobody is getting recognition they don’t deserve… There’s trap artists whose music to me is really game-changing… They should receive the credit and their shine for that.”
He lists Lil Uzi Vert and Young Thug as two of the artists who are changing the game but also takes care to credit Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole as two artists who are upholding the “the textbook rhyme sh*t, real lyrical sh*t” who also deserve that same shine. He concludes that “we would really maintain order and balance if we can really establish what the subgenres are. That way when the awards come up, there’s nobody getting overshadowed.”
He imagines a world where rappers are awarded for Best Trap Rap, Best Lyrical Rap, Best Autotune Rap, and Best R&B and therefore are correctly assigned due credit for achievement within their specific area of expertise. He denounces the binary of “hip-hop” and “rap,” and says that balance is something that the rap game needs and that all lanes need to be respected.
