On Saturday night, the Clive Davis’ pre-GRAMMY gala was a special event where Sean “Diddy” Combs was honored with a special award.
The Recording Academy and Clive Davis presented the music executive, entrepreneur, and three-time GRAMMY-winning artist and producer, with the coveted “GRAMMY Salute to Industry Icons Award.” It was a star studded event attended by Beyonce, Jay-Z, Chance The Rapper, Santana, Cardi B, Offset, Kenny G, Kygo, Lana Del Rey, Lang Lang, Luis Fonsi, Naomi Campbell, Nas, Ozzy Sharon, and Kelly Osbourne, Pete Wentz, Quincy Jones and many more.
Mase, Lil Kim, Faith Evans, Carl Thomas and his son King Combs paid a special tribute with a performance on stage while other performers included Beck, Santana, Ryan Tedder, Miguel, Chance the Rapper, Adrienne Warren, Khalid, Brandi Carlile, Cyndi Lauper, John Legend, Andy Vargas, Wyclef Jean, and Cynthia Erivo.
During his acceptance speech, Diddy called out the GRAMMYs for not respecting Hip-Hop as a genre enough. “Every year, y’all be killing us, man. I’m speaking for all the artists here, the producers, the executives. The amount of time that it takes to make these records, to pour your heart out into it. And we just want an even playing field,” he said with all the passion. “In the great words of Erykah Badu, ‘We are artists and we are sensitive about our sh*t.’ We are passionate. For most of us, this is all we’ve got. This is our only hope,” he continued.
“Truth be told, hip-hop has never been respected by the Grammys. Black music has never been respected by the Grammys,” he summarized his appeal by asking the Recording Academy to get their act together. Watch the speech below.
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