This year’s Grammys on Feb. 4 came with many shocks and surprises but none came more surprisingly than Killer Mike winning three awards including the best rap album, rap song and rap performance. He beat out larger artists including Drake, 21 Savage, Doja Cat, Nicki Minaj and Kendrick Lamar. Many WJ students and critics worldwide had harsh words to say about Killer Mike getting the spotlight, feeling he was undeserving.
Looking at the stats, it brings into question how he was nominated for such prestigious awards in the first place. Killer Mike has 4.1 million monthly listeners on Spotify which was the second lowest only to artist Black Thought in the three categories he was nominated for. The next largest artist above Killer Mike was Nas with 9.6 million monthly listeners, over double his amount.
“I don’t think he was deserving of his awards, especially the best rap album because Utopia by Travis Scott was released during the same time. [Utopia] was undoubtedly the best album by far,” senior David Tsaava said.
While many say he wasn’t worthy of the awards, others disagree. All art including music is subjective. While some may dislike his music or him that doesn’t mean he can be discredited for what he has created.
“I did listen to his music before and although maybe he shouldn’t have won best album over Drake, I still like his music and think he deserved it over everyone else in the other categories like best song. “Scientists and Engineers,” the one that won the Grammy, was my favorite,” senior Noah Liebstein said.
There is also a large population who had never even heard of Killer Mike. The Grammys set him off and helped him grow his career massively, expanding the audience he has been able to reach. This has helped him majorly in one aspect which is paying for his albums. He has been known to pay for his albums so hopefully as he brings in more money, he will be able to create additional music each year while continuing to up the level of production, too.
“I never heard of Killer Mike before the Grammys and I thought he was going to be very overhyped but after actually listening to a couple of his songs he surprised me. I definitely gonna be paying more attention to his new releases,” senior Jonah Levy said.
Despite all his success, Killer Mike has recently been in a different kind of spotlight as well. After the Grammys, he was arrested and booked on a charge of misdemeanor battery and released after an altercation at the Crypto.com Arena in LA. He has a court date scheduled for the end of February. Killer Mike has said this is just a “speed bump” and is ready to return to the studio and keep working.
“I don’t really know the content but everyone has been through a lot of things so it’s hard to judge him on his actions. I think I’m still going to listen to his future music,” senior Can Torumtay said.
