Plenty of fire and fury at 60th annual Grammy Awards
NEWYORK: Just as the Hollywood award shows this year have been dominated by the Time’s Up movement, the 60th annual Grammy Awards became a platform for artists to address sexual harassment and abuse, but also President Donald Trump, immigration and gun violence.
Artists arrived on the red carpet with white roses to show support for female equality, but others skewered Trump or criticised his administration’s treatment of immigrants with the Statue of Liberty serving as a backdrop. Kendrick Lamar opened the show with a gun-rattling performance while country stars mourned victims of the country’s largest mass shooting.
The Grammy Awards didn’t hold back in a pre-recorded skit aimed at Trump, which featured a surprise appearance by Hillary Clinton and others reading embarrassing passages from the Trump tell-all Fire And Fury.
The skit featured musicians such as John Legend, Cher, Snoop Dogg and DJ Khaled reading portions of the book as an audition for the audio book. Rapper Cardi B added her own opinion after reading about Trump’s regular routines, saying “This is how he lives his life?” But it was Clinton’s appearance that gathered the loudest applause from the crowd at Madison Square Garden. Predictably it was a hot topic on Twitter soon after, prompting United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley to post that the segment was “trash.”
Janelle Monae pointed her finger at the music industry’s role and responsibility following a wave of sexual harassment and abuse scandals that have rocked Hollywood. “It’s not just going in Hollywood,” Monae announced during the show. “It’s not just going on in Washington. It’s right here in our industry as well.”
Kesha delivered the most powerful performance of her career as she sang “Praying,” backed by a chorus of women in white, with her emotions raw on her face and in her voice. The pop singer, who has accused her former producer Dr Luke of raping and drugging her, sang directly to overcoming an abusive relationship and finding forgiveness.
Singer Camila Cabello, a Cuban-mexican immigrant brought to the United States as a child, spoke about the American dream in a thinly veiled reference to the Trump administration’s policies on immigration.