On Saturday night, Frank Ocean went on Tumblr to address comments made by The Grammys’ creative team— producer Ken Ehrlich and writer David Wild—in an interview on Rolling StoneMusic Now, the magazine’s podcast.
Ehrlich and Wild responded to Ocean declining to submit his 2016 music (Blonde and Endless) for Grammy nomination, and specifically, his thoughts about the awards being “dated” and out of touch with the younger generation of black artists.
On the podcast, Ehrlich and Wild believe Ocean’s gripe with the Grammys stems from his 2013 performance of “Forrest Gump,” which wasn’t a shining moment for him. When Ocean pitched his idea to sing in front of a large screen (and another with running legs facing the audience), Ehrlich responded by saying, “That’s not great TV.”
Wild continued:
“What [Ehrlich]’s taught all of us who work with him is, ‘We’re not putting on a radio show. We’re not making a mixtape. We’re broadcasting on CBS to tens of millions of people, to the whole world, and you have to make it a TV moment and a musical moment that works on television.’ And [Ehrlich] knew from the start that that was not one of those moments.”
“We executed his vision knowing that it was faulty. And we tried to tell him that, we tried to tell his management that, we tried to tell the record label that. So, his feelings about the Grammys right now, I would imagine, probably go back to that in one way. But honestly, it wasn’t us.”
Ocean posted on Tumblr a direct response about their claims, doubling down on his comments about the Grammys. He cites that he doesn’t need to win a “TV award” to be successful.
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He also stated that Kendrick Lamar should have won Album of the Year over Taylor Swift.
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To conclude, Ocean chastised the Grammys’ exhaustive length and gave them a piece of advice.
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