2021 Grammy Awards: Drake blasts organisers, says The Weeknd was ‘a lock’ for ‘album or song of the year’

In a follow-up post, the Hotline Bling rapper also mentioned Lil Baby, the late Pop Smoke, PartyNextDoor and Popcaan as artists who had been overlooked by the influential award ceremony.

‘Too many missing names to even name…’ he wrote.

The Weeknd (real name: Abel Tesfaye) rose to prominence with his acclaimed trilogy of mixtapes in 2011, including House Of Balloons, Thursday and Echoes Of Silence, but his guest spots on Drake’s 2011 album Take Care introduced him to a larger fan base.

The singer’s most recent album, After Hours, debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart and earned the best first-week sales of any album in 2020, according to Billboard.

Since the Grammy nominations were announced, The Weekend has complained that the awards are ‘corrupt,’ and he has suggested that his decision to perform at the Super Bowl, only a week after the Grammys, might have influenced the nomination process.

‘Collaboratively planning a performance for weeks to not being invited?’ he wrote. ‘In my opinion zero nominations = you’re not invited.’

According to TMZ, the Grammy organizers had required The Weeknd to skip Super Bowl LV, before eventually allowing him to perform at both events.

But insiders familiar with the artist believe that the shut-out was related to the negotiations.

Recording Academy interim chief Harvey Mason, Jr. responded to the singer’s public complaints in a statement to Rolling Stone in which he admitted that he was ‘surprised’ that The Weeknd had been overlooked, though he claimed that voting had concluded before the Super Bowl performance had been announced.