Looking at the lineup from the 2024 Grammys, Killer Mike’s album “Michael” stood out as an outlier in a sea of projects from the biggest names in hip-hop. What made it an outlier was Killer Mike’s lack of popularity compared to other nominees. There is a preconceived notion in hip-hop that popularity equals quality and that the most popular project is the most deserving of accolades. This idea is flat out wrong.
Names such as Travis Scott, Metro Boomin and Drake & 21 Savage were all up for nomination as well. Given the fact that the Grammys are usually a popularity contest, it seemed that Mike was a talented MC doomed for a snub. But that wasn’t the case. Instead, Killer Mike’s name was called three times as he swept the primary awards of the rap category.
This result was met with joy from a niche portion of hip-hop fans but absolutely detested by many others. Both of those feelings are born from the same harmful idea: popularity trumps all.
“People were upset because usually the award does go to the most popular artist. Mike winning broke that up and as a result upset a lot of people,” said King Johnson, a junior bachelor of fine arts acting major.
Mike deserved to win because it was a fantastic rap album, but the expectation surrounding the Grammys is that the most popular albums walk away with the most awards. The difference in feelings when that expectation got shattered came down to which artists people supported.
The most vocal portion of upset fans came from the Travis Scott camp. 2023 saw Scott drop his much anticipated project “Utopia,” and for his fanbase it was an easy shoe-in for album of the year. When it turned out that wasn’t the case, they became vocal about their displeasure.
The biggest place for this hate was on social media, where it seemed like everyone’s feed was filled with slander being thrown Mike’s way. A lot of it attacked his popularity as an artist more than the actual quality of his album.
Brennan Olson, a senior bachelor of fine arts acting major and also a major Scott fan, expressed a valid way to feel about Scott’s loss.
“Killer Mike has definitely deserved Grammys for his past popularity, but that was back in the 2000s,” Olson said. “But he ran out of gas. And in comparison to ‘Her Loss’ or ‘Utopia,’ his album doesn’t compare. Travis fans had his whole album memorized from the time he dropped the album to the time he first performed it. Which was like a week.”
A majority of Scott fans, however, did not even listen to “Michael” and are only hating on its win because it wasn’t a popular album. This type of outrage is particularly ridiculous.
If an album is great, then it’s great, regardless of who makes it or its popularity. Quality is not adjacent to popularity, and this notion within hip-hop is absurd. The qualities that make “Michael” a fantastic project are self contained in the album’s contents. Its production, its features, its substance, Mike’s overall lyrical ability and storytelling: in each facet the album is objectively fantastic and more than Grammy-worthy.
This notion isn’t a new thing and is an ongoing issue that’s finally bubbled up to the surface and spilled out onto Mike. In a lot of hip-hop circles, great artists such as Denzel Curry and Danny Brown are cast aside by a majority of fans because they make music that is less in line with the mainstream sound of today.
Every year, talented rappers make some of the best rap albums in the game, but they don’t even get considered for awards due to their lack of mainstream appeal, and that is a shame. Mike was one of those elite, underappreciated rappers that got nominated and managed to overcome the status quo and win.
That’s where the hate comes from, and it’s unfair. Talent is talent and should be viewed as such.
