To Pimp a Butterfly, is by far one of the most prolific albums to ever be recorded not just in the hip-hop genre but music in general. So, what rattles my cage when it comes to Kendrick Lamar not winning the 2016 Grammy for Album of the Year is not that it wasn’t well deserved by Taylor Swift, but that it seems just like with the Oscars this year, that there is a pasteurization of Black culture. I also won’t lie I have gotten down to a plethora of mainstream white fempop songs since my birth in 1993. Now, don’t get me wrong I am not like one of those circa 2007-2010 hipster music purists, may they rest in peace, because I can admit I think it takes at least some inkling of talent and courage to make a hit song. Yet, in all honesty since the Grammy’s I have listened to our nation’s “Album of the Year” and for me it has many more memories of drunk girls yelling “No way!” at the top of their lungs and scuffling to the dance floor for one last song before the lights go on, then any sort of meaningful social commentary.
It perfectly captures the inner drunk white girl inside me (from my Mom’s side) and the burgeoning idyllic romantic inside of us all. I have gotten down to Taylor Swift’s Blank Space on her now Grammy award winning album 1989, a few too many times than I care to admit. Why “To Pimp A Butterfly” Didn’t Win Album of the Year