Frank Ocean wasn’t interested in attending the Grammy Awards ceremony on Sunday, but he was interested in responding to the criticisms of the show’s producer.
In a new tumblr post, Ocean called the Grammy Awards broadcast’s producer Ken Ehrlich and writer David Wild “old” and said that “winning a TV award” doesn’t make him successful.
Ocean’s post was in response to some statements made by Ehrlich and Wild to the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast last week.
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The Pyramids singer previously said that the Grammys were “dated” and out of touch with young black artists.
“I think the infrastructure of the awarding system and the nomination system and screening system is dated,” he said. “I’d rather this be my Colin Kaepernick moment for the Grammys than sit there in the audience.”
Ehrlich responded to the two-time Grammy winner’s criticism by saying artists like Ocean should show up and perform in order to better represent themselves and their community.
He noted that he had invited Drake, Kanye West and Justin Bieber to perform on this year’s show.
“If they’re concerned about the representation of hip hop on the show,” he said, “they need to respond and say ‘Yeah, of course I want to do it.’ They’ve all done it in the past. Without overstating it, I think we were very instrumental in the growth of Kanye West’s career.”
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Ehrlich and Wild both went on to criticize Ocean’s “faulty” performance at the 2013 Grammy awards show, blaming it on his “rigid” opinions.
“Frank had a very definite idea of exactly what he wanted to do and how he wanted to do it,” Wild said. “Ken said, that’s not great TV, and what he’s taught all of us is, ‘We’re not putting on a radio show … you have to make it a TV moment.’ And he knew from the start that that was not one of those moments.”
Ehlrich added, “And we executed his vision knowing that it was faulty. And we tried to tell him that, we tried to tell his management that, we tried to tell the record label that. So, his feelings about the Grammys right now, I would imagine, probably go back to that in one way. But honestly, it wasn’t us.”
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Ocean had previously said he wouldn’t attend this year’s Grammy Awards show and also opted not to submit his new album Blonde for Grammy consideration.
“We all die one day and you’re old so f*** it,” Ocean wrote in his post. He also sarcastically thanked them for reminding everyone of his 2013 performance, which he called “absolute s***.”
“Don’t you think I would’ve wanted to play the show to ‘redeem’ myself if I felt that way?” Ocean wrote. “In reality, I actually wanted to participate in honouring Prince on the show but then I figured my best tribute to that man’s legacy would be to continue to be myself out here and to be successful.”
“Winning a TV award doesn’t christen me successful … I am young, black, gifted and independent … that’s my tribute.”
He also called Taylor Swift’s album of the year win in 2016 “hands down one of the most ‘faulty’ TV moments” he’s seen.
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“I’ve actually been tuning into CBS around this time of year for a while to see who gets the top honour and you know what’s really not ‘great TV’ guys? 1989 getting album of the year over To Pimp a Butterfly. Hands down one of the most ‘faulty’ TV moments I’ve seen,” he wrote.
Ocean added, “Believe the people. Believe the ones who’d rather watch select performances from your program on YouTube the day after because your show puts them to sleep. Use the old gramophone to actually listen bro, I’m one of the best alive. And if you’re up for a discussion about the cultural bias and general nerve damage the show you produce suffers from then I’m all for it.”
Read his full post here.
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