Last night's Grammy awards saw no female artists take home trophies in any of the main categories they were nominated in, save for Alessia Cara nabbing the Best New Artist prize. SZA, who was one of the most nominated performers at last night's ceremony, walked home empty-handed, while Lorde was the only Best Album honouree not asked to perform a headlining set during the proceedings. This resulted in a #GrammysSoMale hashtag that went viral during last night's telecast.
Variety caught up with Grammy president Neil Portnow to explain why most female artists were not honoured with any trophies. Portnow revealed that women who enter the industry need to exude the same creative passion and fearlessness of their male counterparts. Read his full response below:
"It has to begin with… women who have the creativity in their hearts and souls, who want to be musicians, who want to be engineers, producers, and want to be part of the industry on the executive level… [They need] to step up because I think they would be welcome. I don’t have personal experience of those kinds of brick walls that you face but I think it’s upon us — us as an industry — to make the welcome mat very obvious, breeding opportunities for all people who want to be creative and paying it forward and creating that next generation of artists."
Ken Ehrlich, a producer for last night's telecast dodged Variety's request for an explanation, revealing that "it’s not for me to talk about. I produce the TV show."