Nicki Minaj blasts Grammys for giving 2012 Best New Artist award to "white man Bon Iver"

25 November 2020, 18:08

Nicki Minaj announces her docu-series is coming to HBO Max

By Jazmin Duribe

"They gave it to the white man Bon Iver."

Nicki Minaj has criticised the Grammy Awards for giving Bon Iver the Best New Artist award in 2012 following the release of the 2021 nominations.

On Tuesday (Nov 24), the nominations for the 2021 Grammy Awards was announced and it triggered a lot of drama. Harry Styles scored three nominations (he's the first One Direction member to be nominated), The Weeknd didn't receive any nominations despite the success of his album After Hours and single 'Blinding Lights' and Justin Bieber kicked off that his album Changes was nominated in for Best Pop Vocal Album rather than R&B. Right…

Well, the noms also brought back some old feelings for Nicki Minaj. The rapper reflected on the 2012 Grammy Awards, when she received three nominations for her iconic debut album Pink Friday, including for Best New Artist and Best Rap Album.

READ MORE: Harry Styles earns three Grammy nominations

She tweeted: "Never forget the Grammys didn’t give me my best new artist award when I had 7 songs simultaneously charting on billboard & bigger first week than any female rapper in the last decade – went on to inspire a generation." But it was the last line of Nicki's tweet that left the internet in stitches.

She continued: "They gave it to the white man Bon Iver." I-

Back in 2012, Bon Iver beat Nicki, Skrillex, J. Cole and The Band Perry and won the Best New Artist award. Surprisingly, Nicki has never won a Grammy throughout her career despite having been nominated nine additional times.

This isn't the first time Nicki has called out the Recording Academy, though. In 2019, Nicki claimed she was "bullied" into staying quiet about her secret beef Grammys Executive Producer Ken Ehrlich.

During an episode of Queen Radio in June 2019,  Nicki revealed how Grammy officials told her that she could no longer perform following Whitney Houston's death. She said: "This is after I had done a bunch of commercials with L.L. Cool J to promote the Grammys […] After I did everything they asked, they told me not to perform. I said, 'No I’m going to perform.'"

Nicki went ahead with the performance and it was later criticised by the Catholic Church for its use of religious imagery. Nicki was warned that she shouldn't discuss the show, but she wanted to explain herself, and after refusing to back down she claims Ken blacklisted her.