Today, we marvel at how the American Music Awards once tried to have categories specifically stating “Best Black Artist.”
Things That Turned Out Bad is a feature where I spotlight ideas by writers that probably weren’t a good idea at the time and have only become more problematic in retrospect.
Now, don’t get me wrong, award ceremonies today are STILL messed up when it comes to its handling of Black artists. Tyler the Creator noted back in 2020 when he won the Grammy for Best Rap Album that, “It sucks that whenever we—and I mean guys that look like me—do anything that’s genre-bending, they always put it in a ‘rap’ or ‘urban’ category. [It’s just another] politically correct way to say the n-word.”
So that is a very fair complaint by him. Billie Eilish also agreed with him at the time, noting, “Don’t judge an artist off the way someone looks or the way someone dresses. Wasn’t Lizzo in the Best R&B category that night? I mean, she’s more pop than I am. Look, if I wasn’t white I would probably be in ‘rap.’ Why? They just judge from what you look like and what they know. I think that is weird. The world wants to put you into a box; I’ve had it my whole career. Just because I am a white teenage female I am pop. Where am I pop? What part of my music sounds like pop?”
These are all very fair, very modern criticisms.
However, holy crap, it’s still a lot better than the American Music Awards’ pivot in 1985 to specifically having categories for “Best Black Album,” “Best Black Single” and “Best Black Male Artist”!
The issue was that the award used to be “Best R&B/Soul,” and in 1984, Michael Jackson dominated the category with his Thriller album, but, well, Thriller is clearly a pop album, so to avoid any complaints about the category not being truly “R&B/Soul” the following year (as Lionel Richie and Prince were both having huge years with pop/rock albums), they pivoted to “Black” instead of “R&B/Soul.”
Richie and Prince dominated the category in 1985, and you can see them win their awards in these super-sketchy categories…
They went back to R&B/Soul the following year, so it was only a one-time deal, but boy, what a bad idea THAT was.
If you have a suggestion for a future edition of Things That Turned Out Bad, drop me a line at brian@popculturereferences.com.
Watching the “we are the world” documentary on 2/2/24 and I am like when the heck did award shows have categories based on race!!!!! Had to come hunting on google. Thanks for the insight!
Pretty crazy stuff, right?
I had to Google this one. AMA was out of hand for this one. Before my time but watching the Documentary, I was I was wow…thee audacity.
ha! i was watching WAtW doc too alongside my niece of 24 walking her through the times and the artisits and the explosion of this song and then was HORRIFIED to see the Black categories at AMAs and not remember that was a thing. Makes more sense i missed it if it was a one year mistake, but wow, what a poor poor solution to the bias that still pervades awards shows whether re race/genre attribution or arbitrary gender-based categories
Watching the We are the world documentary and I was dumbfounded lol glad they changed THAT up boy I tell ya