The 2018 Grammy nomination list was released last Tuesday after much anticipation from Grammy fans and nominees. This year’s nominees were surprising in many ways. There are nominees that almost every music lover could expect to be nominated and there are also a lot of well deserved artists who were snubbed. 

It is clear that this year the Recording Academy paid a lot of attention to the rap and R&B genres.Nominees for Record of the Year include “Redbone” by Childish Gambino, “Despacito” by  Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee Featuring Justin Bieber, “The Story of O.J.” by JAY-Z, “HUMBLE.” by Kendrick Lamar, and “24K Magic” by Bruno Mars. The nominees for Album of the Year include “Awaken, My Love!” by Childish Gambino, “4:44” by JAY-Z, “DAMN.” by Kendrick Lamar, “Melodrama” by Lorde, and “24K Magic” by Bruno Mars. Nominees for Song of the Year are “Despacito” by  Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee Featuring Justin Bieber, “4:44” by JAY-Z, “Issues” by Julia Michaels, “1-800-273-8255” by Logic Featuring Alessia Cara and Khalid, and “That’s What I Like” by Bruno Mars. The final category in the General Field, also known as the Big Four, is Best New Artist and include nominees Alessia Cara, Khalid, Lil Uzi Vert, Julia Michaels, and SZA. 

For the first time in 20 years, there were no white men nominated for Album of the Year, flooding happiness regarding the representation of people of color in major categories. The Recording Academy was under fire last year after Beyonce’s album “Lemonade” lost to Adele for Album of the Year, shocking even aDele herself. Although not confirmed, it seems that the Recording Academy took the negative feedback from previous years and proactively did something about the lack of diversity. Most likely, avoiding following in the footsteps of the Oscars. For the forgetful, the trending hashtag, #OscarsSoWhite emerged during the 2016 event over the lack of representation over the years. 

Although many people were happy with this years Grammy nominations, there were a couple of artists some felt may have been looked passed. Both Vince Staples and Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest gave their opinions about being looked over on Twitter. On the day of the nomination list release, Staples tweeted to his followers about not bringing up the Grammys to him, preceding his anger about the academy’s ignorance of the commercial success of his recent project, Big Fish Theory. He also tweeted on Nov. 17 that his album “Big Fish Theory” is Electronic Album of the Year. Staples was not considered for any nominations this year. 

Another anger-fueled snub from fans was about English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran. In 2016 he walked away with two Grammy awards for his song “Thinking Out Loud.” This year, Sheeran’s nominations are in the Best Pop Vocal Performance and Pop Vocal Album categories, leaving him out of the Big Four. This may have something to do with the Recording Academy wanting to keep those major categories diverse, but many people think that Sheeran’s recording-breaking album “Divide” deserved a nomination.