There are tons of Frank Ocean fans who want the Blonde singer to get nominated for a Grammy this year. And they’ve got a very high-profile comrade in their corner: Kanye West.
During a sold-out show in Oakland, California on Saturday night, Yeezy made his rooting interests very clear. He promised to boycott the Grammys if neither of Ocean’s albums, Blonde and the visual album Endless, were nominated for awards.
Kanye may have promised more than he realized, though. Ocean isn’t going to have any albums nominated this year because he didn’t submit anything for consideration by the filing deadline. If Kanye’s threat is to be taken seriously, nobody should expect to see him at the Staples Center when the 2017 Grammy Awards ceremony goes down.
It just goes to show that you should always double-check the rules and regulations before making such a dramatic promise, much less in front of an Oracle Arena crowd of about 20,000 people, intoxicated en masse by the excitement of the Saint Pablo tour (and an imminent new era of Warriors basketball, to boot).
According to a report from Billboard, Ocean and his team knew full well what would happen when they didn’t meet the filing deadline, which would seem to indicate that he doesn’t much care whether he wins a Grammy or not.
He could always release another album in time for next year’s award circuit, though you can never really tell what the musical landscape will look like that far into the future. Sitting out one year gives every other recording artist a chance to seize the spotlight, swapping in their new hotness to replace all the not-quite-so-new-anymore hotness.
Kanye, on the other hand, almost certainly will be in contention for a Grammy this year with a full nomination announcement expected on Dec. 6. Kanye could miss out on potentially walking away with some serious hardware if he goes through with that boycott threat. But it seems like solidarity is what’s really on his mind, and for Ocean’s part, it’s got to be nice knowing a fellow artist is so staunchly in your corner.