oscars

Jay-Z accepted the Dr. Dre Impact Legacy Award at the Grammys and used his platform to stand up for his wife, Beyonce, and critique the Academy. He believes that artists are often miscategorized and that the Academy needs to be more specific with their categories. He also mentions that SZA not winning Album of the Year was controversial and that a black woman hasn't won the award in a long time. Despite opinions about Jay-Z, he is considered a legend in the hip-hop industry and is praised for his talent, impact, and entrepreneurship. He is known for setting standards and standing up for black women. For Bonneville College, my name is Jake Richardson and here I'm with Pauly and Trios, who's one of my favorite guys on campus. And me and him, we were discussing about the Grammys, which was yesterday, which was on February 4th, in which Taylor Swift, she practically won pretty much every award from Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Solo Films of the Year, Best Vocal Album winner by Battle for Now's Nation. And even though Beyonce did not perform, I really wish she was performing. Her impact was really well known throughout the community and I did like the fact that Jay-Z, he did have his speech in which it did have a lot of inspiration. So I just want to know just what was your main takeaway from Jay-Z's speech and just what you think that a lot of people could learn from that. Yeah, so in Jay-Z accepting the Dr. Dre Impact Legacy Award, I thought it was an interesting place for him to use his platform, to stand up for his wife, to stand on business. I mean, obviously that's, Beyonce is his wife of over a decade now, so to stand on business for your wife, you know, you expect that. But he is also a pioneer in the industry, one of the most impactful people in all of music right now. Like he sets the performers for the Super Bowl halftime show, you know. He chose Usher. He, you know, was the one who curated the Dr. Dre of that halftime show. So Jay-Z is a major influence in the music industry. But I think that was his space, while receiving praise from the Academy, to also critique the Academy, which I think is fair. You know, hip-hop is a music of revolution. It is a music of resistance. So for Jay-Z to receive a Legacy Award and use it as a means of resistance, or to speak his piece, you know, he is completely within his right. Because Jay-Z is, you know, you can't separate business from personal. Especially in the entertainment industry. And Jay-Z's not a businessman, he's a business man. I do agree with his stance when he was like, a lot of y'all are nominated for awards, but not even in the category, right? They very much do miscategorize artists. Like I felt in the past few years, you know, for the longest time, they had folks placed in the spoken word section that were audiobooks. And like, Obama's audiobook is not in the same category as spoken word poetry, right? So it's like, the combining of spoken word into a category it doesn't really belong was a miscategorization by the Music Academy. And in the case of like, Beyonce, I think he feels like, is kind of, you know, he doesn't feel like it was fair to categorize Beyonce as certain things. Now Beyonce came out and she's releasing a country album. And there's people standing against it saying like, oh, well, that's not really country music. It's just, it's just Beyonce, which Beyonce, we can't even categorize Beyonce. Beyonce makes pop. Beyonce makes dance. Beyonce makes rap. She, yeah, Beyonce raps. She makes R&B. Yeah, she kind of like, defies genre, right? So I think the Academy, it's hard because then you have to start getting super specific with all of the categories, right? Because now they have like, they got R&B, they got blues, you know, like, do they even have blues? Anyway, um, they have hip hop, they have R&B. Latino music. Yeah. But when it comes to major awards like that, like Album of the Year, right? Or like Record of the Year. There's definitely a lot of people that were outraged that SZA, like that SZA didn't get Album of the Year, because a lot of people felt, well, a black woman has not won Album of the Year since... Jesus is the, I'm going to take a guess. Might have been Beyonce. Yeah, I was thinking about that. It had to have been Beyonce, but I do like your opinion on that. I do like the take on it. I mean, Jay-Z, I mean, I don't know why people, some people call him overrated, some people call him smart, but whether he is a dancer, and in fact is, he's a legend in the hip hop industry. I think Jay-Z is incredibly talented. He is a legend. I think he is the most prolific and best rapper of all time. And that's me taking everything into account, not just lyrics, but impact culturally. His being head of Def Jam for a long period of time, founding Roc Nation, being the first, I think he was the first hip hop billionaire. Yeah, I believe so, but I believe he wasn't. Yeah, yeah. Before Kanye was. Yeah. And that's the thing, is that he is a tastemaker in the industry. He sets standards. He is a brilliant entrepreneur, just as much as he is a brilliant lyricist and writer and performer. And I also like that he stands on business and he stands up for black women. All his past aside, you know, full on swinging on him in the elevator aside, like he got Rihanna for the Super Bowl because she's long been a collaborator. He signed her to Def Jam, right? She broke off and went to Roc Nation with him. And Jay-Z is also a reason Chris Brown has not had as much of a platform because of his.