There’s a long history of Black artists feelings snubbed by the mainstream media. Many Black artists have seen their names featured alongside amazing artists of all calibers but when it comes to recognition for their individual contributions, they’re often found sorely lacking. Nicki Minaj weighed in on the 2021 Grammys nominations, still sore from her own loss almost a decade ago.
Another rapper, 50 Cent, just recently had similar gripes to that of Minaj – except instead of music these days, he’s more focused on his ever-expanding television empire.
Power premiered in 2014 and became one of the Starz Network’s most highly rated shows and one of cable’s most watched shows in general. The cast featured Omari Hardwick, Naturi Naughton, Lala and more. Now that it has concluded, it’s been also splintered into a few different spin-offs, one that features R&B singer Mary J. Blige.
Unfortunately for 50 Cent, none of this translated to Emmy success and 50 Cent’s been very vocal about it over the years. Despite the show’s appeal to fans and success in viewership, the show hasn’t truly made much waves in the award show chatter world at all. After the totality of its run, the show hadn’t been recognized by any of the major television award shows – though the show has won a number of NAACP Image Awards.
This time last year, he took the Emmy Awards to task for snubbing him, too. Just last July, 50 Cent was calling the award process “racist” at the Television Critics Association when asked why his show had never gotten a nomination. “I’d like to say it’s racial. That’s the easy way to get out of things. I just think [the voters] overlook it,” 50 said to the audience at the time.
“The EMMY’s can kiss my black a** in slow motion,” 50 captioned a picture on his Instagram last year showing the breakdown of Power‘s current ratings. “F**k em I’m #1 They a bunch of Bengay my back hurt smelling a** old people anyway.” It seems as if his feelings haven’t changed since then at all, since another year of nominations has come and gone – without any mentions of Power once again.
“ok here it is Emmy’s, My Black a** for your consideration to kiss,” he wrote in a new post’s caption about his perceived slight recently. “F**k your organization I only care about NAACP awards,” said 50, referring to the one award show organization that has supported him and his show. It also just happens of course that the NAACP organization is one that caters exclusively to Black people.
Taking to Twitter today, Nicki Minaj had similar complaints about the Recording Academy, which is responsible for awarding the Grammy awards every year — considered the highest honor in the music industry.
Rewind back to 2012, and Minaj was nominated in the Best New Artist category – which she ended up losing to Bon Iver, a loss which stunned many of her fans and caught others by surprise, given the massive success she was having in her career at the time.
Her tweet ended with, “They gave it to the white man Bon Iver. #PinkFriday.”
Sounds similar to 50 Cent. See the tweet below.
Never forget the Grammys didn’t give me my best new artist award when I had 7 songs simultaneously charting on billboard & bigger first week than any female rapper in the last decade- went on to inspire a generation. They gave it to the white man Bon Iver. #PinkFriday
— Mrs. Petty (@NICKIMINAJ) November 24, 2020
