Why Drake withdrew himself from 2022 Grammy Awards

Popular Canadian rapper and producer Aubrey Graham, professionally known as Drake, has withdrawn from the 2021 Grammy Awards consideration.

Drake got two nominations in this year’s Grammys; Best Rap Performance for ‘Way 2 Sexy’ and Best Rap Album for ‘Certified Lover Boy’.

According to multiple reports, the request to withdraw came from Drake’s management, which the Recording Academy obliged.

This means there will now be only four nominees in each of the affected categories.

So far, the four-time Grammy Award winner has not made a statement regarding the withdrawal. For a while, Drake has been critical of the Grammys.

Last year, as part of the uproar over the award-nominations process and its use of so-called ‘nominating committees’. The Recording Academy’s system came under fire when Drake’s compatriot, The Weeknd, was snubbed for any nominations despite having some of the year’s most critically acclaimed and popular work.

Expressing his discontent with the award organisers, Drake wrote on his Instagram page last year, “I think we should stop allowing ourselves to be shocked every year by the disconnect between impactful music and these awards and just accept that what once was the highest form of recognition may no longer matter to the artist that exist now and the ones that come after. It’s like a relative you keep expecting to fix up but they just won’t change their ways.”

Drake has won four Grammy Awards, six American Music Awards, a record 29 Billboard Music Awards, two Brit Awards, and three Juno Awards, and holds several Billboard Hot 100 chart records; Drake has the most top 10 singles, the most charted songs, the most simultaneously charted songs in one week, the most Hot 100 debuts in one week, and the most continuous time on the Hot 100 (431 weeks).