When XXXTentacion passed away last year, a shockwave was sent through the hip-hop community as we had lost one of our rising stars. The man was controversial but his music changed many people's lives for the better. He was in the process of making positive alterations in his own life, creating a foundation to help out people in his community and donating to women's shelters. XXXTentacion was deemed ineligible for the "Best New Artist" category because of when his album 17 was released but many expected his face to show up in the "In Memoriam" segment during last night's Grammy Awards. Unfortunately, they were mistaken.
According to Variety, the late rapper's estate requested numerous times for the Academy to recognize XXXTentacion in the memorial portion of the show but in the end, they decided against it. Other artists, like Mac Miller and Avicii, were honored during the ceremony's memorial section but XXX was not shown. Academy president Neil Portnow was asked previously if they would be featuring the Florida rapper in the segment, to which he responded: "I will tell you it’s a daunting challenge. We track those that we lose in our industry in any given year and then we have a process by which we go through it. Our on-air in memoriam — we’re lucky if we wind up [featuring] 10 to 15 percent of those we lose. Because it’s always hard choices. All of that is to say, I don’t have any answers for you now, but obviously artists who were prominent and well-known by the public are people who are recognized and we’ll just wind up having to see how it plays out."
Were you surprised when XXXTentacion didn't at least find his way into the "In Memoriam" segment?