This year's Grammy nominations are the hot topic for the day since the list was revealed this morning.
Jay Z, Kendrick Lamar and Bruno Mars lead with the most nominations, while Cardi B snagged a nod that has left many shocked on how she gets considered over Nicki Minaj. A couple names left off the list are Frank Ocean and Drake despite some hot releases dropped this past year. Complex recently chatted with Bill Freimuth who is SVP of Awards for the Academy, where he answers many questions we are left wondering.
When asked if the Grammy team reached out to Frank and Drake's crew after not seeing their tapes handed in for consideration, Bill says it's the academy's policy to "not reach out to individual artists or labels or management companies about making submission."
"It could easily be seen as bias on our part, were we to do that," he explains. "And we work very diligently to avoid any bias or perception thereof. So no, we didn't do that. And of course, it's everybody's prerogative to choose to enter or not."
When questioned about this year's diversity of nominees that has improved from previous years, Bill explains how it was not a move made on purpose by the deciding team, "and this year, that group of people decided that the best music of the year was being made by a more diverse group than we've seen in at least the recent past in our nominations. And we're very happy about that, but it's not like it's been an overnight kind of thing."
Bill lets it be known that the Album of the Year category, that has a number of rap nominations, was not a decision that's made to make a "statement.
"From the staff and the board and the organizational standpoint, we are not making a statement with the nominations," he says. "It's the will of our voters that we are putting out there. And I would say that, sure, maybe there is X percentage of voters who use their votes to make more of a statement, but we certainly encourage all of our voters to simply vote based on what they feel is of the highest quality."