The Marshall Mathers LP 2 has taken home the top prize at the 57th annual Grammy Awards. The album, released in November of 2013, beat out Childish Gamino’s Because The Internet, Common’s Nobody’s Smiling, Schoolboy Q’s Oxymoron, Wiz Khalifa’s Blacc Hollywood, and most notably, Iggy Azalea’s The New Classic. Eminem also took home the award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration with Rihanna for The Monster.
For all the debate surrounding Iggy Azalea’s place in hip-hop, she was shut out. Azealia Banks had called her out, questioning what nominating a white female would do to the hip-hop culture, stating, “When they give these Grammys out, all it says to white kids is ‘You’re great, you’re amazing, you can do anything you put your mind to.’ And it says to black kids ‘You don’t have shit, you don’t own shit, not even the shit you created for yourself.'” Of course, this started a now famous twitter war, pulling in the likes of Lupe Fiasco and Q-Tip.
It had been a weaker than normal group of artists up for Album of the Year, with the likes of Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, Chance the Rapper, and Macklemore sitting out 2014. For Grammy consideration, an album needs to be released before September 30th of that year. J. Cole’s album, 2014 Forest Hills Drive, while being one of the most successful hip-hop releases of 2014, dropped in December.
Kendrick Lamar, while not releasing an album this past year, took home the prize for Best Rap Song for I. It is Lamar’s first Grammy, after his critically acclaimed Good Kid M.A.A.D City lost to Macklemore’s The Heist the previous year.
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