When the Recording Academy releases its annual list of Grammy nominees (as it did yesterday), there’s always backlash. It felt particularly potent this year, though, since The Weeknd, who put out some of the most commercially and critically successful music of the year, was somehow completely absent from the nominations. He wasn’t the only superstar missing from the list, though, as Cardi B’s “WAP,” perhaps the biggest single of the year, isn’t up for any Grammys. There’s a good reason for that, however: Cardi didn’t actually submit the song for consideration, and now she has explained why.
Yesterday, she said in an Instagram Live video:
“Stop playing with me. Like I said, I’m never pressed for a Grammy, but y’all are not gonna take away something that I know that I worked my ass off that I deserve. If I was pressed for a Grammy. I would have submitted ‘WAP’ for this year, and I didn’t submit it. I didn’t submit it. I didn’t want to be submitted to award shows until I put out my album because I think my album is so good, and it just means something and I worked on it a lot. I’ve been working on it for almost two years. Some songs are so emotional to me because I did them during quarantine. I’m not pressed or nothing, but y’all not gonna keep doing this sh*t constantly, constantly because y’all are upset. Y’all cannot take my success.”
Cardi B address on why she didn’t admit WAP to the #GRAMMYs pic.twitter.com/C6JXMolyMr
— ????? (@bardigangonly1) November 24, 2020
Find the complete (or rather, almost complete) list of 2021 Grammy nominees here.
Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.