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Nicki Minaj hits out at Grammys after Super Freaky is moved from rap to pop category
By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 14 October 2022
We’re slowly moving towards Grammy season again and the complaints have already started rolling in.
The nominations haven’t even been announced for the big American music awards yet, but Nicki Minaj says that she’s had her single ‘Super Freaky Girl’ switched from the rap category to which she submitted it to the Best Pop Solo Performance category. And she isn’t happy with that development.
“‘Super Freaky Girl,’ where I only rapped on the song, was removed out of the rap categories at the Grammys and put in pop”, she told fans in an Instagram Live video.
“Now, let’s say that ‘Super Freaky Girl’ is a pop song. Let’s just say that. What is [Latto’s] ‘Big Energy’? … If you move ‘Super Freaky Girl’ out of rap and put it in pop, [you need to] do the same thing for ‘Big Energy’. Same producers on both songs, by the way. So let’s keep shit fair. Even when I’m rapping on a pop track, I still out-rap”.
This is not the first time that a rapper has complained about the category the Grammys has placed their music in – although often the complaint is about being classified as rap when an artist feels they are making pop.
Minaj noted this in her video, bringing up the example of Drake and ‘Hotline Bling’, which won Best Rap Song and Best Rap/Sung Performance at the 2017 Grammys. Drake himself told reporters at the time that: “‘Hotline Bling’ is not a rap song. The only category that they can manage to fit me in is in a rap category, maybe because I’ve rapped in the past or because I’m black … it feels weird to me”.
Last year Drake was up for Best Rap Performance for ‘Way 2 Sexy’ and Best Rap Album for ‘Certified Lover Boy’, but asked for his nominations to be withdrawn. This year he has not submitted any music for consideration.
Tyler, The Creator similarly won the Best Rap Album for his ‘Igor’ LP in 2020, despite that record seeing him experimenting more with pop. He said of his win at the time: “I’m half and half on it. On one side I’m very grateful that what I made can be acknowledged in a world like this. But also, it sucks that whenever we – and I mean guys that look up to me – do anything that’s genre-bending or anything, they put it in a rap or urban category”.
The Grammy Awards have faced various criticisms in recent years, including of racism and corruption. Organisers have attempted to counteract these with a number of changes, although complaints from artists still continue.
We’re not actually expecting to find out who is nominated for next year’s Grammys until the end of next month – with voting still currently underway. Minaj has got in early with her complaints this year for certain. You can probably expect to hear plenty more from other artists once the nomination lists are actually out.
