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*The 2018 Grammy Awards was not without controversy Sunday night, as the hashtag #GrammySoMale called attention to the lack of female representation in the top categories.
The lone female winner presented with an award was Alessia Cara, who took home Best New Artist. Additionally, Lorde was only artist in the Album of the Year category not invited to perform. She was also the lone woman in the category.
Recording Academy president Neil Portnow was asked by Variety about #GrammysSoMale and said, basically, women need to “step up” and earn their spots.
“It has to begin with… women who have the creativity in their hearts and souls, who want to be musicians, who want to be engineers, producers, and want to be part of the industry on the executive level… [They need] to step up because I think they would be welcome. I don’t have personal experience of those kinds of brick walls that you face but I think it’s upon us — us as an industry — to make the welcome mat very obvious, breeding opportunities for all people who want to be creative and paying it forward and creating that next generation of artists.”
Grammys producer Ken Ehrlich deflected when asked the same question. “It’s not for me to talk about,” he said. “I produce the TV show.” As for whether it was a mistake to not give Album of the Year nominee Lorde an onstage moment, Ehrlich answered: “I don’t know if it was a mistake. These shows are a matter of choices. We have a box and it gets full. She had a great album. There’s no way we can really deal with everybody.”
