American musician Morgan Wallen has decided that he does not want to be in the running for a Grammy Award in 2026 with an album that ranked first on the Billboard 200 chart, thus joining his colleagues who are boycotting this event.
His PR team confirmed this information to Today, but the country musician himself has not commented on the withdrawal of his album "I'm the Problem" from the 68th Grammy Awards.
His album, which contains 37 songs, was at the top of the Billboard 200 chart for 11 weeks, making it his third album to top this music chart.
It is speculated that the reason for the Grammy boycott is that Wallen has had a large number of songs that have topped the charts, but has never won a Grammy Award, although he has been nominated twice. Last year, Wallen was nominated for the song "I Had Some Help", which he recorded with rapper Post Malone, in the categories of best country duo and best country song, but he has never been nominated for work on a solo album.
He is not the only musician boycotting the Grammy Awards. Among those who do not want this recognition is Canadian musician Drake, who explained his decision by saying that “this award does not dictate any s*x in this world”. However, the fact is that Drake had already won five Grammy Awards before the decision to boycott, and over the past few years he has collected a total of 55 nominations. The problem was partly caused by winning the Grammy, because his song “Hotline Bling” was declared best rap song and best rap performance, which is why he criticized the leaders behind this event.
"I'm a black artist, and obviously a rapper because of that, even though 'Hotline Bling' is not a hip-hop song. The only category they could put me in is rap. I don't know if it's because I rapped before or because I'm black," he said in an interview.
When his 2022 album “Certified Lover Boy” was nominated for best rap album and his song “Way 2 Sexy” for best rap performance, Drake asked the Recording Academy to withdraw the nominations. He didn’t even want to compete for a Grammy Award the following year with his album “Honestly, Nevermind.”
The Weeknd, who has had 14 nominations and four wins in recent years, is also on the boycott list. After his songs “Blinding Lights” and “After Hours” were, in his words, “humiliated,” he announced that he no longer wants to compete for Grammys with his albums or songs.
And among the first to take this step was Sinead O'Connor, who performed for the first time at the Grammy Awards in 1989. And a year before she tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II on the live show, she announced in an open letter that she would boycott the Grammys.
"They only value the commercial side of art. They only care about material gain, that's the main reason for their existence," she explained. However, in 1991, the Grammys declared her album "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" the best, and the musician refused to accept the award.
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