Detroit’s Royce 5’9’’ up for Best Rap Album
Detroit’s Royce 5’9” up for Best Rap Album
News that his 2020 album “The Allegory” is up for a Grammy Award came as a surprise to Detroit rapper Royce 5’9” — in a couple of ways.
“I had no idea that we even submitted the album,” he says with a laugh from his studio in Birmingham. “I found out we had submitted it and we were nominated on the same phone call — which was really cool.”
Even cooler, “The Allegory” is up for Best Rap Album at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, March 14, alongside releases by Nas, Jay Electronic, D Smoke and Freddie Gibbs & the Alchemist.
“It’s the category for me, man, the only one I pay attention to,” Royce (real name Ryan Montgomery), 43, says. “I’ve always been an album guy, even though there are classic singles in hiphop history. But I’ve always been one to pay attention to whole albums. I’ve always been a stickler for the way somebody can make an album seamlessly go from front to back — like, say, a Dr. Dre or P. Diddy, OutKast.
“It’s like watching a movie, y’know? That’s the art of it. So to be looked at in that way, it’s really, really cool.”
Royce — who was also nominated for a Grammy a decade ago, as a contributor to Eminem’s album “Recovery” — certainly felt like he’d hit a high mark with “The Allegory.” After 2018’s deeply introspective “Book of Ryan,” “The Allegory” found Royce looking outward, taking stock of society on tracks such as “My People Free,” “Black People in America,” “Black Savage” and “Generation is Broken.” “It’s right in your face,” Royce acknowledges. “I was just talking about what I was seeing, what was on my mind.”
That it came in front of a summer of civil unrest only made “The Allegory” — which features collaborations with his PRhyme mate DJ Premier, Vince Staples, Kid Vishis, Cedric the Entertainer and others — more relevant and even prescient as the year wound on.
“It felt prophetic a little bit,” Royce says now, “Like, everything I touched on and everything I was concerned about and speaking about, not only did it happen but the things that were already going on have been exacerbated. The world as it is right now is kind of a reflection of what I talked about on the album. It’s a little creepy.”
Even scarier, Royce adds, was observing the reaction to Black Lives Matter and other protests, from police resistance to “people justifying very, very wicked acts against other human beings.”
“It makes you think, ‘What kind of world are we living in? What’s happening now?’” says Royce, who in addition to his eight solo albums also teams with Eminem as the duo Bad Meets Evil and is part of the rap supergroup Slaughterhouse. He also contributed to Eminem’s “Music to Be Murdered By” albums last year.
“Y’know, we would like to think we’ve come so far, and that’s not the case. I think every now and then there’s got to be that one artist or one album that shows up to the proverbial party and puts up a big mirror and makes everybody look at themselves and look at things as they really are at that moment in time — like Marvin Gaye and ‘What’s Going On.’ If you’re honest about what you’re seeing, that’s all that’s gonna come out when you create.”
Royce isn’t sure yet where his creativity will take him next. He’s been busy outfitting his studio for video as well as audio, with an aim toward virtual performances — although he, like so many others, is anxious to get back on stage again, and recently did for a Grammy Week online performance for the entertainment company Yoop.
“I just want to be ready for anything,” he explains. “I’m getting a little bit of cabin fever, like everybody else. I’m always getting ideas; When I have enough of them together I’ll start thinking about the next album. Until then, there’s a lot of other stuff to do — thankfully.”
The 63rd Annual Grammy Awards take place at 8 p.m. Sunday, March 14, on CBS (WWJChannel 62 in Detroit). Trevor Noah hosts, with performances by Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Cardi B, Dua Lipa, Bad Bunny, John Mayer, Post Malone, Harry Styles and more. The Grammy Premiere Ceremony, at which most of the awards are handed out, streams at 3 p.m. Sunday via Grammy.com.