00:00I'm Joy Marie McKenzie here on the red carpet at the 61st annual Grammy Awards.
00:05And you might have heard this already, but some black artists declined to perform this year.
00:09So what can the Grammys do about it? Well, we're going to ask the artists themselves.
00:13I think it's been, what, two years now? They've started like a committee that helps get the category and the nominees a bit more closer to the culture.
00:22I think they've done a good job. I look at the category this year and I'm pretty happy with it.
00:27I see hip hop really represented well, you know, this year.
00:30People get overlooked, you know what I mean? So it's a good thing that, you know, that they, you know, they listening and giving the people what they want.
00:36So shout out to the Grammys.
00:38A lot of rappers sometimes don't even know that it's their job to vote, like actual, the actual superstars.
00:43You got to go and vote for the people that you believe in.
00:46So sometimes we're looking at other people to say that they need to do it.
00:50But it's actually, we're empowered if we want to be.
00:52It's two worlds coming together. I think the hip hop community got to get very involved with the Grammys
00:56and understand that the Grammys are a prestigious, you know, team of people.
01:02And the Grammys have to understand that hip hop is ever evolving.
01:07You know, there's a call to arms as far as the artists investing their whole selves into the art form itself.
01:14I don't think there should be an appeasement for any one genre or any one individual.
01:19I think we should earn our keep at all times.
01:22We did a voting membership initiative last September to try to get more people of color, more underrepresented voices,
01:28more women, more young people to become members of the academy.
01:32And we want people to understand the value in being part of the change, right?
01:35We need everybody to join in. We can't make change unless everybody's part of the change.
01:39We can't make change unless somebody makes change into the body.
01:43And if that section does in a row, be the part of the change.
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